


Damask Rose

by Unda



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blade Runner AU, Body Horror, Cyborgs, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Smoking, bro is always a terrible person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-01-17 08:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: Early in the 21st Century, THE LALONDE CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labour, in the hazardous exploration and colonisation of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on Earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant.This was not called execution. It was called retirement.





	1. Chapter 1

Early in the 21st Century, THE LALONDE CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labour, in the hazardous exploration and colonisation of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on Earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant. This was not called execution. It was called retirement.

 

Rain beats against the windscreen of your car as Kanaya flies you between the skyscrapers, you’ve no shame in admitting that she’s the better driver of the two of you. The windows inside the car are starting to fog, steamed up by the heat from your warmer blooded body. You wipe the sleeve of your coat against the passenger window as a neon advertisement for CocaCola slides past your view. 

On the console between you and Kanaya the screen flickers with an alert of an incoming message. You reach forward and hit the button to accept the call. It connects, and Terezi appears on the screen, her tight teal edged suit arching high up on her neck.

“Officer Vantas, Maryam.” she greets you both. 

“We’re already en route if that’s what you were calling about Terezi.” you tell her. 

“No, I know that. Other officers have hit the locations that the suspect was rumoured to be at and found nothing, so it’s likely that the mysterious Bro will be at the hotel that you’re headed to. I’m sending backup your way but I don’t want you to wait, just keep sharp.” she orders you, her voice businesslike. 

“Got it. Thanks.” you nod, adrenaline rising in your blood. The whole LAPD has been after the criminal known only has Bro for longer than you’ve even been on the force. He’s a genius bioengineer and hacker, the few things that he can’t make himself he strongarms other people into making for him and has left a considerable body trail behind him. Not only does he make unlicensed replicants but he also willingly extends the lifespan of older, dangerous nexus models and brings them under his command. He’s rumoured to have taken control of the bodies of replicants and used them to assassinate people and some even talk about him killing people and replacing them with replicant copies. You doubt it’s all true of course but one way or another the guy is the biggest killer on the planet and finally you have a lead on him and it looks like it’ll be you and Kanaya who bring him in. This guy won’t stay a ghost forever. 

Kanaya lands carefully in an alleyway around the corner from the old derelict hotel and looks across at you with a serious expression on her face. 

“Be careful.” she warns, drawing her gun. She much prefers her chainsaw as you do with your sickles but neither of them is long range and you need that for this job. You draw your own firearm, and with a nod the pair of you get out of the car. The rain drenches you almost immediately and though you don’t like how it limits your vision you can appreciate that it also obscures other people’s view of you. 

You gesture towards the building and you and Kanaya jog towards it and duck under the awning of the hotel. Boards cover the windows but one door is clearly still in use and you can see a handprint on the glass. Kanaya pulls a scanner out and runs it over the handprint. In the pale blue light of the screen, her face pulls into an expression of displeasure and she turns it around to show you: no fingerprints and whatever palm print might have been there is covered with fingerless gloves. Bro’s MO.

The door is locked but not much keeps a determined rainbow drinker out and so Kanaya easily shoulders the door open to the groaning protest of the lock. You shut it behind you and the pair of you slink into the dark building. All of the lights are out and only blue neon light seeping in from the buildings across the way shows you where you’re going. You both creep up the stairs, sweeping the place room by room as you follow the path through the place that is relatively free of dust and mould. The trail leads you to the penthouse suite, the highest floor there is. 

The door is ajar. 

Kanaya leads and pushes the door carefully open. Inside the room is a mess, puppets of all sorts litter every surface. Everything from plush dolls to marionettes and mannequins. Swords are scattered across a pool table with a dismembered leg. 

You jerk your head to the right and the pair of you walk that way. You are greeted by a disused kitchen, the refrigerator door hangs open revealing swords inside and shuriken are embedded in the walls. More puppets sit on counters and one is stuffed in a blender, you resist the urge to turn it on. 

The next room beckons, the long table suggests that it was once a dining room but replicant parts and machinery litter the entire table. On a pillar on the far side of the room is a statue. A bright orange teenage boy clad only in a t-shirt and bandages crouches there, his arm bracing on the pillar the only thing protecting his modesty in that pose. From his back sprout large orange wings and the blade of a sword. Sunglasses are placed on his face, and you get the feeling that the statue is watching you somehow. 

At the end of the table in front of the statue is an array of computers and you can hear their whirring from here, someone was using them and recently too. Kanaya is investigating some replicant parts, so you quietly walk to the computers, maybe you can find some kind of lead there. You turn your back on the statue and lean down to look at the screens. 

The screen shows building layouts and computer code, you can’t help but notice the address for it. It’s the main building for the Lalonde Corporation, the manufacturer of all replicants. Does Bro have some plan to infiltrate them?

The light on the screen and the table around it blots out. You whirl around to see the statue’s wings spread and you get half a second to think ‘not a statue’ before the orange winged boy leaps at you and smashes you bodily into the computers with a feral hiss. He wrenches your gun from your hand and hits you in the face twice with it. The pair of you falls to the floor as a gunshot rings out, no doubt from Kanaya. You try to hold him off of you with one hand and reach for your sickle with the other, but it’s hard. His wings beat at you angrily and he’s trying to get his own weapon too, a sword jammed through his chest that he evidently intends to jam through yours. His other hand is clawing at your arm leaving hot lines of pain in his wake. 

You hear the rev of a chainsaw, and the boy’s face contorts in pain. You feel his lower half hit your legs and his upper half falls away easily when you pitch him to the side. You skid backwards as he gapes at you, orange blood flowing from his severed midsection. 

“Thanks.” you croak out and Kanaya hauls you to your feet. 

“I think whatever stealth we had is probably blown. We should continue quickly.” Kanaya says, dusting you down. 

“Yeah, after you.” you say and your partner and moirail heads out through the next door. That turns out to be a hallway which leads to a storage room, a bathroom, and a workshop. One last door beckons at the end of the corridor though it’s so dark down there you almost don’t see it. You click your torch on and hold it and your gun ahead of you as you walk towards it. Kanaya opens the door and you both rush through it. 

It’s a dark and unlit bedroom but you freeze when the beam of your torch lands on a figure with his back to you. 

“Don’t move!” you yell at him and he doesn’t, not even a flinch. Kanaya’s torch shines on him too. He’s taller than you, slender with tan skin and white-blonde hair. 

“Put your hands in the air!” Kanaya orders and he does, fluidly raising them fully above him but staying stock still otherwise. 

“Turn around.” you command. He obeys, hands still in the air. His eyes are covered by the same sunglasses as the orange winged replicant out there and between that and his strange behaviour you’re pretty sure the guy isn’t human. 

“What are you doing here?” you ask but he just stares at you silently. 

“Who are you?” you try but still no answer. His hands are still in the air. 

“I say we arrest him.” Kanaya suggests and you pull your handcuffs free. The only part of this level of the building that you haven’t searched yet is the stairs leading to the roof. 

“Put your hands behind your back, I’m going to handcuff you. Okay?” you tell him, walking close. He puts his hands behind his back immediately. 

“Okay.” he echoes, his voice a little rough. 

“He speaks. What’s your name?” you ask as you cuff him. 

“Dave.” he replies. 

“Dave what?” you ask, turning him around not that he puts up any resistance. He offers you no answer. 

“Are those your computers out there?” you try. 

“No.” he answers. 

“Do you know who they belong to?” you continue. 

“Bro.” Dave tells you impassively. 

“Do you know where he is?” Kanaya asks. 

“No.” he replies. 

You frown and reach up to take his sunglasses off, he doesn’t fight you but he blinks at the harsh light of your torch. His eyes are red, human eyes don’t come in that colour as far as you know. You put them in your coat and take him by the arm. 

“Come with me, let’s go to the roof, Kan.” you say to her and steer the willing replicant out of the room. 

Bro is nowhere in the hotel or on the roof, wherever he got to he’s long gone. Ten minutes later backup comes and takes the bisected replicant away and starts bagging all of the evidence, you get the computers sent straight to Sollux. The replicant sits obediently on a sofa cleared of puppets and watches you as you drag a chair up across the coffee table between you. An assistant brings you the Voight-Kampff machine from your car, and you set it up on a few stacks of books. You can’t retire the guy or bring him in until you prove he’s a replicant, it seems pretty cut and dry to you but protocol is protocol. 

The machine unfurls as you switch it on, the arm of it bringing the eye scanner level to Dave’s eye. The bellows on the machine pump, looking for human pheromones. That part of the test is far more accurate when it’s a troll like you conducting the test, for that reason there are very few human blade runners left hunting replicants. Kanaya leans over the back of your chair and watches. 

“Please look here.” you say, pointing at the eye scanner and Dave does so. The machine zeroes in on his eye and starts to measure the contraction of his pupil. 

“I need you to stay still. I’m going to ask you some questions and I want you to give your honest answer. They’re just hypothetical but they are timed. Do you understand?” you ask, you’ve given this speech a hundred times before. Plenty of replicants think they can fool the test but to your knowledge none ever have. 

“I understand.” Dave replies distantly. 

“It’s your birthday, someone gives you a calfskin wallet. What do you do?” you ask, not needing to look at the book to know this question. 

“I’d keep it.” Dave answers flatly, the machine detects no emotional response. Replicants are close to human but their responses are programmed, biomechanical engineering at its finest but it can’t make a soul, it can’t give empathy. Your test looks for empathetic responses and emotional reasoning. 

“Why?” you press. 

“It’s not getting any deader.” he says. 

“You’re watching television. Suddenly you realise there’s a wasp crawling on your arm, what do you do?” you ask. 

“Stay still.” Dave answers. 

“You wouldn’t squash it?” you ask curiously. 

“No.” Dave says. 

That’s interesting. Passive but interesting, you decide to push it. 

“You could trap it under a glass, pin it down. You could pull off its wings.” you suggest and on your screen his pupil contracts, an emotional response to cruelty. His face is still impassive. 

“No.” is all he says. 

That was a human response, what the hell? You need to keep testing. 

“Describe, in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.” you say, moving on.

Dave’s mouth opens but no sound comes out, his brow furrows slightly and your screen goes wild with the natural human emotional reactions in his eyes. What is going on here? He’s reacting human to your test but his answers are either missing or weird, you have no idea if he’s human or not. 

“You find a child with a broken arm on the street, you bring him back here to fix it for him. He’s crying.” you say as you skip ahead in the book to a question you don’t use a lot. 

“I wouldn’t bring him here.” Dave tells you, his answer all wrong but his biological response correct. Is Bro making replicants that can fool your tests? 

“Why not?” you ask but he doesn’t reply. 

Kanaya slides her hand onto your shoulder and squeezes.

“You have a sister. You’re children and playing in the street, a truck comes along and she pushes you out of the way to safety. She is hit and killed. How do you feel?” Kanaya asks. 

Dave’s mouth opens and his eyes go wide. He gasps in a jagged breath and it comes back out in a choked noise, your screen shows a blown up image of his eye and you watch as it floods with clear tears that spill out over his cheeks. You’ve never seen a replicant cry who wasn’t mortally wounded and even then only once. Dave licks his lips and bites his teeth into his bottom lip as he shakes. 

“Guilty.” he says finally. 

“It- it should have been me. I should have protected her.” he adds shakily. 

You lean forward and switch off the machine. Dave is either the strangest human you’ve ever seen or a prototype for a terrifying new strain of replicant that can fool the test. You need to get him back to Sollux and John to see if they can analyse him on a molecular level. Those tests will be conclusive but they’re hardly portable and replicants don’t let you take them in for those kinds of tests. 

“I’ll call ahead.” Kanaya says softly and leaves you to pack up your machine. You fold its parts down and watch as Dave twists to dry his face on his shoulders, still silent. 

“Are you human?” you ask but he neither looks at you nor says anything. You pack up the last of the machine and pick it up, it’s portable but it weighs a hell of a lot. 

“Come with me, Dave.” you say and guide him to his feet. Kanaya appears in the doorway, her gun still in hand and she follows you as you lead Dave out to your car. She’s ready to shoot him if he decides to suddenly gain some initiative to escape but he does no such thing. Not even as you throw your machine in the trunk of the car and buckle Dave into the back. You keep your weapon at hand, but Dave is still and silent, if he didn’t blink and breathe you wouldn’t even know he was alive. 

You arrive back at the LAPD headquarters and you know that you and Kanaya will have to report to Terezi sooner or later but you want to be able to give her some answers about your prisoner. He’s either a witness, a suspect or evidence and you really like to keep those things separate. Thankfully there is one person that can help you. 

Shouldering open the door to his office you immediately catch sight of technobiologist John Egbert. You’ve known this asshole since you were teenagers first enrolled in the police academy and he had the gall to grow up to be about two foot taller and broader than you and then to decide to chuck in the police work for this nerd crap. Though, in fairness, he’s a real prodigy when it comes to tracking down replicant tech. If you ever have questions about the identity of a replicant or where anything was made he can help you out. The number of times you’ve brought him trace evidence and he’s turned you out a solid lead are astounding. 

“Hello officer shouty, who’s your new friend?” John asks chirpily, stretching his arms above his head so that his back flexes distractingly. Stupid muscle bound Egbert. 

“We found him at the hotel, he was the only one there and truth be told we’re not sure if he’s replicant or human.” Kanaya explains. 

“What, you forgot how to run a Voight-Kampff test? Though I gotta point out that if he let you bring him in I’m pretty sure he’s human.” John laughs. 

“I know how to do the test, he came up inconclusive. His responses are all over the place from too human to not at all but most of the time it’s like he’s not even there. If he’s a fake it’s like all he can do is fool the test and not much else. I need you to tell me.” you explain and push Dave towards him. 

“Huh, okay.” John says, grabbing a pair of gloves from his desk and snapping them on. 

John walks up to Dave and gently cups his face in both hands, turning his head this way and that to look at him. He hums thoughtfully, tilting Dave’s head and running his fingers through his hair. He curiously plucks an almost white hair from his head and walks away to place it in a machine which accepts it and starts whirring and beeping. 

“Open up.” John says, squeezing Dave’s cheeks and Dave unquestioningly opens his mouth. John swabs the inside of his cheek and then places that in a different machine.

“He said his name was Dave.” you offer. 

“Got a last name?” John asks, peering at Dave’s fingertips. 

“He wouldn’t give one.” Kanaya answers for you. 

“Hm. How old are you, Dave?” John asks, but Dave remains silent and still. 

“Where were you born?” John tries again but no answer. 

“What’s your first memory?” he asks to yet more silence. 

“This is weird.” John finally says. 

One of his machines beeps and John walks over to it, reading the paper that it prints out. 

“That’s what I thought. His hair is synthetic.” John says as he reads. 

“Like a replicant?” Kanaya asks. 

“No, they grow their hair like humans do. This is synthetic like implants, it’s almost like doll’s hair. It’s literally plastic, which is weird because even rich old guys who lose their hair and get hair implants get it with real hair. I don’t know who would go to this much effort but then use something so fake.” John says, handing the paper to Kanaya who reads it over as well. 

“There were lots of dolls at the place. Mannequins, puppets, that kind of… thing.” you say, trailing off when you see Dave tense at the word puppet. Another human response. 

The second machine beeps and John returns to it to pluck the printed paper from that one. He taps his chin with his thumb and frowns. 

“Well?” you prompt. 

“Most replicants have common DNA, they’re stitched together from lots of parts genetically speaking, and though there is lots of variation it’s not too hard to find common themes if you know what to look for. It’s not foolproof yet which is why it’s not a standard test, but his DNA is not matching any of the known replicant DNA at all.” John explains. 

“So he’s human.” you conclude. 

“If he is then I’d love to know the explanation for why he’s got all of these elements in his system that he shouldn’t have. The kind of stuff we saw in early replicants back when they still had old school mechanical parts.” John mutters and hands over that result to Kanaya too. 

“That doesn’t make any sense, those replicants aren’t even around anymore, and they were easy to spot. A child could tell them apart. He’s able to fool the Voight-Kampff test, if he’s a replicant he must be incredibly advanced.” Kanaya protests. 

John says nothing but instead reaches out and feels around Dave’s head again, peering into his eyes and running his fingers over his skin. John freezes and his eyes widen. From your place behind Dave you watch as John pushes some of Dave’s hair out of the way and picks at his skin, peeling back a square flap of it and revealing clean metal beneath and a circular jack about the size of a pen tip. John walks around him and stares open-mouthed at the mechanical part. Dave has obligingly lowered his head down to let John look at it. 

“Get Sollux in here now.” John whispers.

You turn and rush down the hall, bursting into Sollux’s office so fast that the door bangs off of the wall. Your friend jumps and spills coffee on himself before fixing you with a furious glare. 

“Wow fuck right off officer douchelord.” Sollux hisses angrily. 

“You need to see this, be a fussy prick later!” you gasp and grab him, dragging him down the hall to John’s room. Sollux swears the whole way but when you pull him into John’s office and he sees the open port on the back of Dave’s neck his protests melt away. 

“Holy shit, is that a biowire port?” Sollux breathes in wonder, walking close to Dave and pushing his glasses up his nose as he leans in to look at it. 

“That’s what I wanted you to tell me, I’ve never seen them in a person before. Only on Alternian tech.” John replies. 

“Well damn, it is a biowire port. This is all kinds of illegal, not that I thought you could get it to work on humans anyway. Who is this guy?” Sollux asks, looking back at you. 

“We’ve got no clue, all we know is he says his name is Dave. His DNA reads human but he’s got weird mechanical stuff in his system, he foxed the Voight-Kampff, and his hair is plastic. I still don’t know if he’s a human or a replicant.” you tell him. 

“I have an idea. John, check his body, I’m going to get a biowire and my computer.” Sollux says and disappears out of the door. 

Obligingly John pulls Dave’s shirt up as far as he can with Dave’s hands still being cuffed behind his back. Your breath catches in your chest as a network of scars is revealed to you. They arc up his spine and unfurl over his ribs like a branching tree. Others seem random, slices into his flesh that in some places are no more than a paler line and in others warp and bite at the flesh around the incision. Now that you’re looking for it you can see the same faint lines over his fingers and hands. Someone cut him up like a science project and you can’t think of any reason why someone would make a replicant only to dissect them and keep them alive after. 

Sollux appears again and whips a biowire out of a plastic sheath, plugging one end into his Alternian spec laptop and the other into the back of Dave’s neck. Dave gasps softly and his eyes slide shut. Sollux and John stare at the screen as it shows them something no doubt complex. 

“He’s not a replicant, but he’s not human either. Or not anymore he’s not.” John says eventually. 

“What does that mean?” Kanaya asks. 

“He’s a cyborg, human with artificial parts.” Sollux answers distractedly. 

“Like Tavros?” you ask, thinking of your friend with the metal legs. 

“No, way more advanced. Biotech, mechanical shit and a goddamn neural network in his head. His brain has literally been hacked. I’ve never seen work like this. He’s got all kinds of programming in here but right now he’s on idle mode, which explains why he’s so compliant. I’m gonna do what I can to try to move the programming aside but it’ll take time.” Sollux says with wide-eyed wonder. 

You and Kanaya are more or less kicked out at that point and you at least have the forethought to leave the keys to the handcuffs with them. The pair of you trudge your way to Terezi’s office and Kanaya fills her in on your mission, the evidence that you collected, the replicant she killed, Bro’s absence and the cyborg in the offices downstairs. 

Terezi leans back in her chair, her fingers drumming on her cane. 

“It seems like this Dave is a victim. Hopefully Egbert and Captor can bring him around enough to talk to us but I have to say that I don’t like the idea of this Bro person walking around with the technology to hack the brains of humans. One way or another he knew that we were coming.” Terezi says seriously. 

“You think Bro has someone on the inside?” you ask in alarm. 

“Possibly, or given this most recent development he may be inside somebody.” Terezi says grimly. She rests her cane on her desk and she plucks a scrap of paper from her desk and begins to fold it as she talks. 

“I’m giving you two full authorization to pursue this on your own. Report only to me. Everything Egbert and Captor find will be top-level security clearance, reported only to you two and me. If this Dave is able to help then all the better, but treat him with caution. We need to catch Bro. I’ll report to everyone else that this operation was a bust, the two of you get out there and start following leads secretly. Dismissed.” Terezi says. She sets a small red origami bird down on the table and looks back up at the two of you as if asking why you’re still here.

You both excuse yourselves and walk out of the building, when Sollux and John have anything they’ll call you. As for now you need to think and let the rest of the evidence come in. You stuff your hands in your coat pockets and look up at Kanaya. 

“Takeout ramen at mine?” you offer. 

“That sounds great.” she says tiredly and smiles at you, her fangs peeking out as she does.

 

An hour later you’re sat on your sofa eating ramen out of a takeaway bowl with your feet on the coffee table. Kanaya eats more daintily than you do but it’s a comfortable silence between the two of you as you eat. You know you’re supposed to enjoy the food but your mind is on the cyborg. Even the word is unfamiliar to you. Tavros had fake legs but he was just a guy with prosthetics, not some new type of being. 

“I can’t imagine how it must feel to have your mind hacked.” Kanaya says, evidently her thoughts had been on work too. 

“Do you think there’s someone in there?” you ask her. 

“I’m not sure if I want there to be or not. The idea of being aware and trapped in your own head is horrifying to say the least.” Kanaya says and plucks a noodle from her bowl. 

You think of Dave, handcuffed on the sofa. Of the way his tan skin was far too clean, cleaner than anything else in that place. Of how Bro cut into him and made him something else, replaced his hair with synthetic platinum blonde. He flinched at the word puppet and cried when Kanaya asked him a purely hypothetical question about a dead sister. 

You’re pretty sure there is someone in there but you wonder if he wants to remember the things that he must know. A terrible feeling settles around your shoulder like a heavy overcoat, he was a toy, a doll. You drink your soup and try not to think about it too much. 

When Kanaya leaves you lean out of the window and smoke. She always tells you off when you do it, she says that it’ll kill you but you’re a mutant and who knows how long you’ll live for anyway. Besides you started years ago when you were a new detective and not even a blade runner yet, you thought it made you look cool and intimidating. Now you think it’s stupid, but you’re addicted and it’s hard to quit and you don’t care enough to try too hard anyway. 

When you sleep you dream of a man with puppet strings through his limbs and a blank stare.


	2. Chapter 2

You brush and style your hair when you wake up in the morning and look out of the window to the thick fog that swamps the city, it is not raining today, but it will be humid. You slick your hair down and zip your boots up before leaving to get the tram to Karkat’s house; he is the one with the parking space for your official vehicle. When you arrive he has coffee waiting for you in a mug that he hands you as he leans against his door. You drive and by the time you land your coffee is just pleasantly warm.

The pair of you work your way down to Sollux and John’s offices where the pair of them have evidently been working solidly since you saw them both last. Dave is dressed in a hospital gown and appears to be asleep on a stretcher. On the wall above him are pinned a number of x-rays.

“His skeleton has been reinforced, his muscles have been altered as well. The two of you are lucky that he didn’t fight you because I’m not sure that even Kanaya has his level of raw strength.” John tells you both as you walk in.

“Have you got anything else out of him?” Karkat asks and you notice the biowire connecting to the back of the cyborg’s head and leading to Sollux’s laptop.

“Not yet, I think I’m getting close to breaking the encryption on him.” Sollux says distractedly as he continues typing.

“Did you get anything off of the computers?” Karkat asks, and Sollux shakes his head.

“I’ve been focusing on him, besides it’s easier to hack a computer when your fat ass hasn’t been thrown through it.” Sollux sneers and Karkat bristles in anger.

“We’re working on what we can, since the commissioner limited this investigation to just us we have to go through all of the evidence. We’ll keep working and get back to you. Isn’t there some other lead that you can work on until then?” John suggests, getting between the two of them.

“Before that winged replicant attacked me I saw stuff on the computer screens about the Lalonde Corporation. We could go there and find out what they know.” Karkat suggests.

“Call ahead and let them know we are coming, I will drive.” you agree.

“You always do.” Karkat chuckles and makes the call.

As he speaks on the phone you take your time to poke through the stacks of evidence. You are almost certain that this was the residence of the infamous Bro, his real name unknown. Each of his tools are catalogued and marked, but much of the evidence has not been sifted through, just wholesale transported into the corners of the larger lab that Sollux and John are now working out of. You peer into a box and spot a copy of Nineteen Eighty Four, worn and well read, the other books are mostly mechanical manuals and order books for small parts.

Moving along you find a catalogued box of clothing and open it curiously. The crime scene people put this in the box, not him. From the size of the clothes you would say that this man is taller than Dave, mostly wearing practical black and white. He is both entirely unaware of fashion and unceremonious in his wardrobe, nothing extravagant or expensive in here at all. You would be surprised if any single item in here cost more than thirty dollars and you’re including the boots.

Another box of clothes appears to be Dave’s size. They seem more like costumes than clothing, although there is a good deal of workout clothing which looks new if cut in places. The place was filled with swords; perhaps Bro favours that kind of weapon.

“Kan.” Karkat calls. You stand up and turn around, the pair of you walk to the roof and climb into the car.

“Have you decided what to ask them?” you question him as the doors slide down to shut around you both.

“I’ll ask if they know of technology that can fool the test, perhaps Bro made a human as close to a replicant as you can get so that he could work out how to fool the test. If there’s someone researching that then they might know what to look for. I want to ask about the winged replicant too, it’s one thing to make a human or to make an animal as a replicant but to splice them like that must require some specific technology. I brought this to show them.” Karkat says, pulling a clear evidence bag out of his coat with one of the orange feathers in it.

“Surely that thing could never have flown.” you comment as you lift off.

“He was pretty keen on ripping my arm off, so I’m glad we didn’t find out, thanks again for the quick work with the chainsaw.” Karkat says and shoves the feather back into his coat pocket.

Outside the fog and smog of the city rolls against your windows, illuminated by neon billboards and holographic advertisements. Eventually, you get the car high enough that you are above all of that and soon enough you can see the gold, flat-sided, stepped pyramid of the Lalonde Corporation building. You land on the roof and a nameless assistant directs you to a meeting room. It is cavernous with a long polished table and a sloped glass wall looking out over the city which seems far more majestic in the young light of the day than you are used to. More gold and rich dark panels line the room which is positively dripping in luxury. Roxanne Lalonde, CEO of the Lalonde Corporation could literally buy Earth several times over. This room alone costs more than your entire building no doubt. You wait for her to show up and just take in the view outside, cars fly by silently out there entirely muted by the window.

Earth is a strange planet, used up in a way that led the humans into space with their armies of artificial people. They took over worlds to set people up on, leaving Earth to the poor and indentured for the most part and the rest of it filled with the heads of corporations who run their operations from their species home planet. The uber rich and the super poor side by side, or in this case one above the other. Humans also discovered trolls on their travels and though the new Empress and your old friend Feferi has made Alternia a better place for previously unaccepted trolls it was still safer for Karkat to be here and as his moirail you came too. All sorts of misfit trolls call Earth home now. The planet is a real melting pot in a grimy kind of way, it is too bad that your job leads you to deal with the scum that floats to the surface of that melting pot.

Something brushes against your leg and you jerk backwards in shock. You stare down and see a black cat looking up at you.

“Mrrow.” it says and winds its way around your leg.

Animals are not really a thing on Earth anymore; the planet just can not support them after the humans destroyed the ecosystem. You have to be wealthy indeed to afford even an artificial animal and it is a huge status symbol for a person or business to have one, to have a real one would be unthinkably extravagant. You have never seen a real cat before, but you think that this might be one.

“Wow.” Karkat breathes, peering at it in wonder but not daring to touch.

“Do you like our cat?” a feminine voice asks. You and Karkat turn around quickly to see the source of it.

Standing in the doorway to the room is perhaps the most beautiful woman that you have ever seen in your life, you swear that you can feel your bloodpusher halt in your chest. Her perfectly coiffed hair is a glittering platinum blonde, pinned up elegantly. Her slender body is lovingly hugged with a structured black dress that accentuates every curve, dip and swell of her perfect topography.

“Is it artificial?” Karkat asks. About the cat, yes.

“Of course. We made it.” she says, walking down the steps. Her hips swing as she walks and her heels click on the polished floor. The cat meows and trots over to her, and she gracefully leans down and scoops it into her arms. She scratches behind its ears with black painted nails and her perfect lips shift into the slightest smile, her lipstick is glossy and pitch black like so much spilt ink.

She is gorgeous.

“I’m Officer Karkat Vantas with the LAPD, this is my partner Kanaya Maryam.” Karkat introduces you both.

“Hello.” you manage to force out.

“Rose Lalonde, charmed I’m sure. It seems that you do not think our work here is of benefit to the public.” Rose says, putting the cat on the table. It looks up at you and its eyes glint gold in the light from outside.

“Replicants are like any other machine; they’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem. We have questions about replicant technology relating to a case we’re working on.” Karkat explains.

“What case?” Rose asks curiously, resting a hand on her hip.

“That’s classified. But it’s regarding the Voight-Kampff test and whether any replicants can fool it, I want to see what your latest models can do and what you’re working on in that field.” he tells her.

Rose opens her perfect mouth to answer but another voice cuts her off.

“A test of empathy? Pupil dilation, expansion of the iris, involuntary emotional cues?” a woman asks from the same doorway that Rose came through. You look up at her, she is the same pale blonde as Rose and her figure just as classic if somewhat older. You know her face, though. She is Roxanne Lalonde.

“We call it Voight-Kampff for short.” Karkat says, sassing her without even meaning to. You are sincerely glad that you got him away from adult highbloods or else by now he would surely just be a nasty stain on the floor somewhere.

“We were hoping to see-” you begin to explain.

“No, no, I heard.” Roxanne Lalonde says, walking into the room.

“Asking to see my work is a big request, corporate secrets like this don’t come lightly.” she says looking at you both with cold pink eyes. You didn’t know that human eyes could come in that colour, or for that matter the captivating purple of Rose’s. You assume that she is wearing contacts, she absolutely is rich enough.

“We’re trying to stop a very dangerous criminal, lives are at stake.” Karkat assures her.

Roxanne Lalonde looks from Karkat to you and seems to consider his words.

“Very well, but before I show you my models I want to see your test in action. I want to see a negative before I provide you with a positive from my newest work.” she says.

“On you?” Karkat asks.

“No. Test my daughter here, seeing as you are already acquainted with her.” Roxanne tells you.

You did not know that Roxanne Lalonde had any children at all, you had assumed that Rose was related to her from the name, but your presumption had gone to a cousin or perhaps a niece. You are the one with the machine in hand so you gesture to the large table and set it down, unfolding it from its case as Rose settles down in the seat opposite you. Karkat lowers the light level in the room by tinting the glass and you try not to let your hands shake as Rose watches you curiously.

“I will need you to take out those contact lenses.” you say to her as you sit down and tuck your chair in.

“I’m not wearing contact lenses. This is my natural eye colour, a quirk of genetics.” Rose says breezily.

It seems you know less about human eye colour than you thought.

“Oh. Well then, my mistake.” you manage to say.

“Please look here and keep still. Kanaya will ask you a bunch of hypothetical questions and statements, answer as clearly as you can. Be aware that they are timed.” Karkat explains, leaning on the table next to the machine as Roxanne Lalonde watches.

You swallow what seems to suddenly be an awful lot of spit in your mouth and try not to think about how that implies that the woman before you is literally mouthwatering and instead glance down at your question list. You try for the classics first, empathy around the very rare animals on Earth.

“It’s your birthday, someone gives you a calfskin wallet.” you say.

“I wouldn’t accept it, and I would report the person who gave it to me to the police.” Rose answers. The correct type of response but the machine isn’t reading the right kind of physical reaction; she likely is just too focused on it being a test. That sort of thing usually wears off after a few questions.

“You are in a desert. You come across a tortoise on its back, it cannot get up without your help, but you do not help it. It is stuck there, flailing, its belly baking in the hot sun. You are not helping it, why is that?” you ask.

Rose’s lips purse slightly as she thinks.

“Perhaps I am stranded there too and need to eat the tortoise to survive. I would hate to kill it and if I had to do that I would put it out of its misery quickly, not leave it to die like that.” she says eventually. An interesting answer, practical but remorseful. Still no physical response though.

Something else, jealousy instead of empathy.

“You are reading a magazine and come across a full-page nude picture of a woman-” you begin.

“Is this testing if I’m human or if I’m a lesbian, miss Maryam?” Rose asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Are you?” falls out of your mouth before you can stop it and Karkat’s startled cough brings you back to reality.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Rose purrs and oh, yes, that is quite the response on the Voight-Kampff machine. A human response indeed, albeit the response of a human who apparently wants to get into your underwear. But that is not what you are supposed to be testing here.

“You- you come across a full-page nude picture of a woman. You show it to your husband, he likes it so much that he hangs it up in the den.” you finish the question.

“I don’t have a husband and I wouldn’t either. But I would keep the photo.” Rose says salaciously, and you are sure that your face is positively green right now.

“You pick out a dress for a party, you arrive and find someone there wearing the same thing, and she looks better in it than you. How do you feel?” you ask, staring at your screen intently.

“Irritated.” Rose says flatly. Hmm, no response.

The test continues that way, Rose’s responses altering from human to not as it progresses. When you try the question that brought Dave to tears she doesn’t even blink and her answer is empty of feeling. The machine tots up the count of human response to replicant and you run almost three times over the normal test length before it shows replicant within an acceptable margin of error. You look up at Karkat and he raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“We’re done.” he says.

“Rose, if you could step out.” Roxanne says, gesturing to the door. Rose frowns but after a moment she gets up and walks out. The large door clicks shut behind her and you both look at Doctor Lalonde.

“She’s a replicant.” Karkat says finally.

“How long does it usually take you to tell?” Roxanne asks with a smile.

“Twenty, maybe thirty questions.” he replies. You pack the machine back up again as you think about her responses, she was very strange indeed. Some responses were incredibly human.

“She did much better.” Roxanne says, sounding pleased.

“It's better only if you’re trying to make replicants that can fool the test. Which is exactly why we’re here, so is that what you’re doing?” Karkat demands.

Rose seemed so human, her reasoning was human and when she did pass for human her feelings seemed genuine. When the test was over she did not react as if she had been found out but more like she was being deprived the satisfaction of seeing how it ended.

“She does not know, does she?” you ask, looking up at the CEO.

“No.” Roxanne Lalonde smiles gleefully.

“How can it not know it’s a replicant?” Karkat barks. Replicants agree to take the test sometimes because they think they can beat it, not because they believe that they are human.

“Memories are the key, you see. Human memories give them a cushion for their fledgeling emotions to rest on, she thinks she’s human so she acts human. When this is rolled out to all of them they will all behave as if they are human.” she enthuses.

Replicants are akin to slave labour on the Off-World colonies, and from experience you know how slavery always ends up eventually, with revolution and heads on pikes. That goes for humans, trolls and replicants alike. The whole reason that the nexus models are banned on Earth is that they rose up once in space already.

“Whose memories are they?” Karkat asks finally.

“That isn’t important. Come, you wanted to see my research.” she says and strides off, her heels clicking on the ground. You and Karkat share a sceptical look and follow her.

She shows you around the facility and explains that the memories that they are placing in the new models of replicants are taken from brain scans of humans when they verbally recall memories and look at photographs. The text of those memories are then implanted into the brain along with the scanned information at the time and apparently the brain just fills in the gaps.

“No memories are fully accurate, every time that we remember something we’re remembering it inaccurately and warping it a little each time. The human brain is wired to work around those difficulties, so it’s easy enough to fake with the right technology.” Roxanne explains.

“So you just scan humans externally to get this information, there’s nothing more invasive?” Karkat asks cryptically, clearly angling about the kind of surgery that Dave must have undergone to be like he is.

“Goodness, no.” she answers.

Karkat looks at you dubiously, her technology can produce similar results but it tells you nothing about the kind of things that Bro is doing. At least not unless you get more specific with your questions.

“Do you know if it would be possible to put replicant technology into a human?” you ask, looking back at her.

“Well, replicant refers to the being as a whole. If you’re looking for artificially grown limbs and such you would be better off speaking to someone in medical technology, that’s not what we do here.” Roxanne says with a shake of her head.

You look to your side at a vat of eyes, ready to be put into replicant heads but not human ones like Dave's.

“We mean adding parts to a person to improve them, give them replicant strength and make them controllable.” Karkat clarifies.

You watch as Roxanne Lalonde’s face goes carefully blank, void of expression. She tucks her hair behind her ear and pauses for a moment before speaking.

“That kind of work has never been done. There have been theories of course but no one is working on that here.” she says carefully.

“And who advanced such theories?” you question her.

“He no longer works here, or anywhere for that matter. He is dead. A hit and run.” she says stiffly.

“Okay, but we’ll still need a name.” Karkat says, taking out a pen.

“Dirk Strider.” she says, her voice tense. Karkat carefully writes that down.

“If that is all I have work to be doing, my employee can show you out.” she says and walks off, waving to a man who promptly escorts you both out of the building regardless of the fact that you had more questions to ask. Under the watchful eye of the employee you and Karkat get back in your car and take off.

“I say we look this Dirk Strider up, if we can find his work we might be able to find out who took it to that kind of conclusion. Someone he knew or worked with maybe.” Karkat suggests. You can’t help but agree, so you steer the two of you back towards the station and park up.

Your shared office is a mishmash of your personal and professional lives. Karkat’s desk is covered with files in all kinds of haphazard stacks, but you draw the line at letting them encroach the rest of the room. If they come off of the desk they are either filed away or set into organised areas. Your desk is pristine. Within your drawers are your own work as well as some of your sewing, sometimes when you busy your hands your mind works better on a case so it is helpful. There is also some secreted vials of blood, though Karkat is your usual donor and you do not need much it is beneficial to have an emergency supply around in case you are injured. Karkat’s desk drawers have some very well worn romance novels hidden in them along with a packet of cigarettes and a lighter that he thinks that you don’t know about. And if there is a box or two of fabric and other items that may or may night sometimes be constructed into a pile for emergency moirail occasions then that is neither here nor there.

Karkat drops into his seat with a groan, both from him and the aged faux leather recliner that is peeling in more places than not. He turns on his computer and gnaws at his lip as he clicks across to the right programs.

“Dirk Strider. Do you think that’s short for something?” he asks you as you sit on the window ledge.

“Who knows. She was evasive about him, something happened there for sure.” you note as you look out of the window. You are too high up to see the people wandering the streets below you and that makes you melancholy in an odd way, you work so hard to protect them and cannot even look at them from your own office.

“Well, he’s never been arrested.” Karkat says after a little bit.

“Voting records?” you suggest and Karkat types a little longer and then shakes his head.

“Screw it, birth certificates.” he mutters and types some more.

“Ah hah!” Karkat exclaims and you lean in to see just one record for a Dirk Strider, born forty-five years ago. Karkat clicks on the link and the computer makes a displeased beep and a popup appears.

“Record corrupted, please call- what the shit is this?” Karkat demands, pulling his phone across his desk and dialling the number before putting it on speakerphone so you can hear it too.

“Records.” the person says sounding clearly bored.

“This is Officer Vantas, I’ve just looked up a record on Dirk Strider but it says that it’s corrupted and to call you. What the hell is going on?” Karkat asks brusquely, his irritation showing through in his hunched shoulders and tense grip on his desk.

“Huh. How do you spell that?” the records person asks in a slow and still bored tone.

“Just like it sounds! D-I-R-K S-T-R-I-D-E-R.” Karkat grits out.

“All one word?” the other man asks.

“It’s a name so no, you-” Karkat starts to yell. You lean forward quickly and gently pap him on the cheek, peppering gentle pats over his cheekbone.

“No, it’s two words. Dirk and Strider are separate.” Karkat continues sounding much more even. The poor wreck would probably have been fired for HR violations by now if not for you, which is a shame because he is such a good and earnest officer.

You can hear the sound of typing through the speaker, and Karkat closes his eyes and leans into your touch for a moment or two.

“Okay, it looks like those records were corrupted in a hack a while back. There were a few of them but we still have the paper records down in the stacks.” the man says and Karkat shakes his head and leans out of your reach.

“I need you to get that for me. Hold on one moment.” Karkat says and quickly deletes Dirk’s name from the search bar and types in Roxanne Lalonde in its place, the same error comes back.

“I also need every record for Roxanne Lalonde. For both of them I want births, deaths, any related family members that you can find a connection to as well. Send them up to my office as soon as you can it’s Officer Vantas, office 80438b.” Karkat orders.

“It’ll take a while.” the person sighs, clearly hoping Karkat will tell him to leave it then.

“Get started quickly then.” Karkat says and hangs up. He swivels around in his chair to face you.

“That can’t be a coincidence.” Karkat says.

“Bro is a hacker, he could have corrupted those files. At the very least it suggests a link between him, Lalonde and Strider.” you agree.

“Yeah, and I’m going to find out what it is.” Karkat nods.

The phone rings again and Karkat snatches it up.

“Hello? Oh, hi. Is he? Great, we’ll be right down.” Karkat says and hangs up again. You look at him curiously and he grins.

“Dave is ready to be woken up.” Karkat tells you and sweeps out of the room. Finally, a witness to interview properly. You rush after him once you have locked your shared office and in no time at all you are down in the lab that John and Sollux have taken over together. In fact, it seems like they have had Terezi clear out this whole section of labs and offices for their work. When you enter the main lab it is obvious that there is still a great deal of evidence that has not yet been examined but Dave is still laid out on the stretcher with John and Sollux gathered around him. You both get close to him and you can see that he is breathing softly, his face relaxed and looking for all the world like someone in the most peaceful slumber.

“Okay, so this is going to take some explaining and I don’t want to repeat myself so pay attention.” Sollux announces, turning his screen around to show you all. On the screen is displayed an image of a human figure and the numerous modifications made to it. Code scrolls across the screen and four boxes sit to the side of the screen; they read “strife, idle, off, free”. Off is currently the box that is selected.

“Dave’s brain was invaded by a biomechanical net that has essentially rewired his brain it can suppress, amplify or control almost all activity. Aside from being creepy as all hell, he’s got several modes programmed into it. When you first brought him here he was in idle. That's essentially a totally suggestible mode where he’ll comply with any given command, but it removes most of his higher thought so anything too complex or requiring too much thought just won’t work.” Sollux explains.

“That’s why he couldn’t answer some of my questions.” Karkat nods.

“Right. Strife mode involves combat, hypes up all of his awareness of the space around him, floods him with adrenaline and essentially turns him into a killing machine. Likely Bro had that programmed for defence, much like the replicant with wings that attacked you. I don’t know why that wasn’t on when you found him, but it’s possible that Bro had to bail before he could flip Dave’s mode.” Sollux continues.

“And so off is just this?” you ask, gesturing at Dave’s sleeping form.

“Yeah, nothing will wake him from this. My best guess is that this is what he was put into for making modifications to his body, but it’s also a pretty good way of keeping him quiet. That was the last mode he had when he came here.” Sollux says.

“But there are four boxes here.” you say, pointing to the screen.

“Yeah, I had to program a new one. I can’t remove the tech in his head without liquefying his brain so I programmed something that essentially switches off all of the interfering programming and lets his brain function as it normally would. The human brain is pretty plastic so it should be able to work around it fine but he may be a little glitchy for a while until his brain rewires itself for normal function. He should be fine though. I can put him into that free mode that I made and I’ve removed as many verbal commands to change him to other modes as I could find but he still might flip. So keep your guard up around him and don’t do anything stupid like threaten him with a weapon.” he says.

“What do you take me for?” Karkat snorts.

“Well…” John says in a teasing voice and Karkat glares at him, making the man burst out into giggles.

“I'm ignoring that. I’m going to wake him up but keep him plugged in for now, I’ll see how he works and if all goes well you can take him away. He might be able to show you something at the hotel that you don’t know about, who knows.” Sollux shrugs.

“Okay, go ahead.” you say and Sollux starts to type and with a flourish at the end he hits the last key.

On the table Dave’s face scrunches up and he makes a soft sound of protest before sleepily opening his eyes. He blinks sleepily at all of you and then suddenly bolts upright in alarm, looking at all of you in fear.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe. I’m Officer Karkat Vantas, you’re at the LAPD.” Karkat assures him, his hands held up peacefully.

“The police?” Dave asks uncertainly.

“Yeah!” John says brightly.

“Your name is Dave, right?” Karkat continues, and Dave nods.

“Great. This is my partner, Kanaya Maryam. This is John Egbert and Sollux Captor. Do you have a last name, Dave?” Karkat asks, gesturing to each of you in turn.

Dave blinks harshly, his eyes scrunching shut and then opening again a second later. He seems to shake himself off slightly and frowns a little at Karkat.

“What?” he asks.

“I said what’s your last name?” Karkat repeats, and again Dave blinks far too strangely.

“What?” Dave says again. You all look at Sollux who is frowning at his screen.

“Well, I said there would be glitches. You’re asking him to retrieve information that he can’t access and it’s too stressful for his brain to work with that right now, so he’s essentially deleting your question from his mind. It’s the human equivalent of a 404 error. I guess that his brain will heal around that later and the knowledge will come back but for now there’s nothing I can do.” Sollux explains.

“What’re you talking about?” Dave asks, looking at Sollux and rubbing at his eyes sleepily.

“Never mind. Dave, how old are you?” Karkat tries. Again Dave blinks weirdly and looks at Karkat in confusion.

“What?” Dave asks and Karkat groans.

“Do you remember us? We met you before.” you ask instead.

“Nope, don’t remember.” Dave answers with a shrug. At least he knew that was a memory that he did not have rather than running into that glitch again.

“We found you on the top floor of a hotel, do you remember that place?” Karkat questions him.

“Yeah, I live there.” Dave answers and squints a little at Karkat.

“Great, tell me everything you can about that place.” Karkat orders him.

“I don’t know, what’s to tell? I live there.” he replies and rubs his eyes again.

“Are you okay? You keep rubbing your eyes.” you point out and Dave grimaces.

“It’s too bright in here, man. My eyes are really sensitive to light.” Dave explains.

“Oh, right. You were wearing sunglasses when we found you. I still have them if you want them.” Karkat says, rummaging in his coat.

“Yeah, gimme.” Dave nods.

Karkat pulls out the strange triangular sunglasses from an inner pocket and holds them out to Dave. You watch as Dave’s pupils go strangely wide and all expression falls off his face, the hand that had been rubbing at one of his eyes drops limply to the stretcher.

“What the hell? He just dropped into idle mode.” Sollux remarks.

“That’s weird, can you pull him back out?” Karkat asks, moving around to look at Sollux’s screen.

“Yeah, just give me a moment.” Sollux says and types quickly. He hits a key and Dave seems to come back to himself with a start, he looks around in bemusement until he sees Karkat again.

“You got ‘em?” Dave asks as he is apparently unaware of his lapse in consciousness. You cannot imagine how unsettling it must be to have your mind so fractured. Karkat nods and holds the sunglasses out again, but once more as soon as Dave looks at them his whole demeanour goes blank and Sollux grumbles in irritation.

“It must be the sunglasses.” John concludes as Karkat pockets them. Sollux types some more and Dave wakes up again.

“You know, I think I have a pair you can borrow. They’re a movie prop from a really old film but I think I can lend them to you.” John offers and Dave smiles slightly at him.

“Oh, sick. What movie?” Dave asks. Not for the first time you notice that the way he talks seems kind of old-fashioned, more like he is from the last century rather than this one.

“Con Air!” John chirps happily as he rummages in a drawer and pulls the sunglasses out.

“Dude, that is a terrible movie.” Dave protests but he still takes the glasses from John’s hands and slides them onto his face without switching states at all.

“Oh man, much better.” Dave sighs in relief.

“That is good to hear. Dave, did anyone else live with you in the hotel?” you ask as Karkat and Sollux exchange a look. Evidently, Dave’s problem was not with sunglasses but those specific ones, how interesting.

“Yeah, a few people. There’s Davesprite, he’s pretty cool.” Dave remarks.

“Another Dave?” Karkat asks in surprise.

“Sort of, he’s made to look kind of like me. Pretty easy to spot, bright orange, wings. You know.” Dave explains. You decide not to tell him that you cut the guy in half with your chainsaw, he might not take that well.

“Then there’s Hal, but he pretty much comes and goes as he likes.” Dave continues.

“Is he a replicant as well?” you ask and Dave nods. So there is at least one that you missed.

“And then there’s… there’s…” Dave trails off and freezes for a moment before coming back to life again.

“Sorry, what was I saying?” Dave asks. Another broken link in his mind then.

“Did Bro live there too?” Karkat asks, changing tactics.

“Yeah but he leaves sometimes.” Dave nods.

“Where does he go?” Karkat presses.

“I don’t know, man. I don’t leave.” Dave shrugs.

“You never leave the building?” John asks in surprise.

“I can’t leave the apartment.” Dave corrects him, that is even less space to live in.

“Why not?” John asks.

“I… I don’t know. I just can’t. I’m not allowed.” Dave mumbles.

“How long have you lived there?” you ask worriedly.

“I don’t know. Always I think. I don’t remember ever not being there. I don’t…” Dave trails off, looking blank again. Dave likely has not spent his entire life there but he’s clearly spent most of it there and all of his time since that net was put inside his brain. He was a prisoner.

For lack of anything else helpful to do you and Karkat run Dave through the Voight-Kampff test again as he is still connected to Sollux’s computer. He tries to touch the cable a few times but Sollux stops him, you cannot help but note that Dave does not seem surprised that there is a cable going into his brain even if he is not overly fond of it. Karkat runs the test and does not even get to ten questions before the machine declares him human without a doubt at all.

Sollux unplugs Dave and gets to work in assembling Bro’s computers to try to pull any information off of them that he can. The rest of you go through the remaining evidence that was brought from the hotel. Dave is mostly helpful at the start, answering questions about what things are or honestly telling you if he does not understand what the more scientific equipment is. After a little while he seems to get bored and starts being unhelpful in his answers to Karkat. You are fairly sure that the notebook that Karkat holds up for Dave does not, in fact, include a list of times that Dave has “banged Karkat's mom”, not least because Karkat does not have a mother of any description. Dave apparently decides that annoying Karkat is the most entertaining thing to do and begins to question him about why he is a police officer and why he is a blade runner. Does it have anything to do with his short stature and apparently terrible personality, for example? Karkat is entirely unable to resist the bait and ends up yelling at Dave furiously which only entertains the man more.

John flashes you a grin partway through one of Karkat’s famous and furious diatribes and waggles his eyebrows suggestively. The implication is pretty clear. You do not know if Dave is deliberately flirting pitch with Karkat or if he is just being childish but Karkat is doing little to discourage him either way.

“You know, as much as my fine ass looks great in this hospital dress can I get some real clothes up in here?” Dave asks after a few hours.

“Your dumb ass more like.” Karkat mutters into a box.

“Heard that.” Dave remarks.

“Good job, your ears work. A gold star for you!” Karkat snaps, waving a hairbrush from a box of evidence at him angrily.

“I believe there was clothing in these boxes.” you tell Dave, opening up the boxes that you found before. You pull out an outfit and note the way that Dave stiffens, not in the way that suggests a change in consciousness but rather in a way that speaks of deep discomfort.

“I’m not wearing those.” Dave says stiffly.

You put the clothes back and open the box with the larger clothes that you suspect are Bro’s, John has already swept them for DNA and come up frustratingly empty handed so it won’t matter if Dave wears them. You don’t even touch them before Dave reacts.

“No.” he says sharply.

“I could lend you some spare clothes that I have.” John offers.

“That’d be awesome.” Dave says.

John obligingly leads Dave to a bathroom and when they come back Dave is dressed in John’s clothes and somewhat drowning in the larger man’s outfit. He looks sweet and you wonder just how young he is, you had assumed that he was around yours and Karkat’s age but right now he looks as if he could be a little younger. It could just be how vulnerable he looks and how enthused he seems about his borrowed outfit.

“Karkat, I think we should take Dave shopping for clothes of his own. He looks out of place in John’s clothes and we are supposed to be discreet, we will likely need to keep him around for some time so he should look more natural than that.” you suggest and Karkat looks at you with a flat and unimpressed expression.

“You just want to go shopping and dress someone up.” he accuses you quietly.

“Well you complain when I do it to you.” you point out.

“Literally all of my clothes were either bought by you or made by you.” Karkat reasons but you do not give into his logic because he denies so many of your aesthetic choices for him even though you know they would make him look superb. Seemingly Karkat gives in because he sighs and shakes his head.

“Are you thinking Cheap Street because if so there’s a guy who does artificial birds down there that I need to talk to.” Karkat says, patting his coat pocket where you know the orange feather lies.

“Yes, I think the ironically named Cheap Street would do nicely.” you nod, it is one of the more expensive shopping districts that you frequent. Still not the most expensive in the whole city, you are not likely to run into Roxanne Lalonde there or anything, but it is still pricey.

“Irony? I’m down for that.” Dave pipes up and you smile winningly at Karkat who groans and gets his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to you. You gesture for Dave to follow you and the three of you make your way up to the roof and get into the car. Dave is openly curious about it and flicks at any button he can reach.

“Knock that off, just sit there and don’t touch anything!” Karkat scolds him, smacking his hand away.

Dave reaches out for Karkat but does not touch him, instead keeping his hand uncomfortably close to Karkat’s face as you take off.

“Stop that!” Karkat snaps, leaning out of his way but Dave follows him.

“Stop what? I’m not touching anything.” Dave says cheerily. Karkat snarls and snaps at him, but Dave just laughs.

“It’s just my luck that when you finally grow a personality it’s a terrible one!” Karkat shouts at him. You shake your head and sigh as you fly through the city. Eventually, Dave gets distracted enough by the adverts outside and the other cars that he forgets to irritate Karkat, you find yourself a little saddened when you realise that he likely either has never seen the city before or if he has it was before he lost his memories.

Karkat rushes off almost as soon as you land and you are left with an awestruck Dave who looks at every shop front that you pass in wonder.

“What kind of clothes do you like Dave?” you ask him as you walk into a department store.

“I don’t know. Something cool.” he says vaguely.

“Hm, like Karkat’s clothes?” you suggest, trying to feel out his style.

“Pff, no. I said cool.” Dave snorts.

“I made those clothes.” you tell him flatly and eye him over a rack of shirts.

“Well, I’m sure they would look cool on someone who’s not as lame as him.” Dave amends.

You walk through the racks of clothes and hold things up for Dave, getting an idea of what colours and styles work for him and what he likes. It turns out that when he is not arguing with Karkat or losing himself in questions he cannot answer he is a nice man and a good conversational partner. He does not protest as you herd him into a changing room.

“So are you and Karkat…” Dave trails off, but it is pretty clear the kind of question he is asking.

“He is my partner.” you tell him.

“I got that much.” Dave remarks and you hear John’s overly large shirt hit the ground and hear the rustle of fabric behind the curtain.

“He is also my moirail.” you add.

“Oh, that’s good.” Dave says.

You can hear a zipper being done up behind the curtain and a lull falls in the conversations.

“That’s one of the non sex ones, right?” Dave asks.

“Yes.” you agree.

“Oh good.” Dave says and pulls the curtain back. He stands there in a black suit and looks rather dashing if you do say so yourself, the cut flatters him perfectly.

“Why might that be good, Dave?” you ask innocently, and you watch in amusement as Dave locks down an expression of panic without much success.

“You know, just making sure there’s justice in the world. Shit ain’t right if a guy like that can get in the pants of a babe like you.” Dave rambles, his face starts to go red and you do not suppress your sly smile of amusement.

“I’m gonna change.” he mutters and ducks back behind the curtain.

Dave does not object to any of your clothing choices at all, from the more formal the most casual. Nor does he protest at your more adventurous choices that Karkat would object to if you tried to put him in them. When the aforementioned Karkat eventually tracks you down he looks tired and frustrated.

“Did you get any answers?” you ask curiously.

“Yes and no.” Karkat sighs.

“How so?” you question.

“The guy I spoke to claimed he had nothing to tell me at all and I thought he was acting weirdly so I asked if he’d mind me running a Voight-Kampff test on him and then he threw three parrots in cages at me and ran so I shot him and he was thankfully a replicant. And I say thankfully with some reservation because I called records and it turns out that guy has a birth certificate which either means that someone is making replicants and forging birth certificates for them or-” Karkat explains angrily.

“Or Bro really is replacing people with replicants.” you finish for him.

“Needless to say I hate both options. Are you two done here?” Karkat asks.

“Keep your hair on, man.” Dave says from behind the curtain and pulls it back to reveal him in a dashing and perfectly fitted red three-piece suit that makes him look like something off of a magazine cover. You glance carefully at Karkat and see him staring at Dave with wide eyes and his face turning a similar red to Dave’s suit. How very interesting.

“I think I like that one the best.” you tell Dave brightly.

“Great, I’ll stay in this one then and we can just take the rest.” Dave nods.

“Perfect.” you agree and delight in the still flustered expression that Karkat has on his face when Dave saunters past him as cool as you please. Score one more point for the power of fashion.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Terezi’s blank red eyes fix on you through her glasses, pinning you in place like a bug for study. From the next room you can hear John and Dave joking with each other, their voices muted through the walls. Regardless of the nearby good mood it’s tense in this room. 

 

“We can’t just keep him with us. He’s been trapped by Bro for who knows how many years, we can’t arrest him because he’s not done anything wrong.” you insist. 

 

“You would rather that we just terf out the only lead that we have on Bro out onto the street? He has nowhere to go after all.” Terezi says, leaning back in her chair and drumming her claws on the desk. 

 

“I didn’t say that.” you mutter. 

 

“In fairness, we do not even know how Dave feels about Bro. He has not expressed a single opinion about him one way or the other, nor has he commented on how he feels about being captive for so long. It is possible that he has not been able to feel things about those subjects in the past. He is a victim here.” Kanaya agrees with you. 

 

“He is also our only witness. You have no other active leads, everything else is still in progress. Take him to the hotel before the day finishes and get him to lead you around. After that you can take him back to one of your homes and keep an eye on him, it’s possible that Bro might try to get him back. Stick together, whatever you do.” Terezi orders you both. 

 

There’s no arguing with her here and it doesn’t help that she is technically right, Dave is your only connection to Bro right now. You’re still waiting on the records on Dirk and on Roxanne Lalonde. Also, John and Sollux are still working through the rest of the evidence as best as they can but as yet they don’t have a solid lead for you. Another team is processing the replicant at the animal store that you shot and they don’t have anything for you yet either. It’s just Dave. 

 

“Fine.” you grumble and stomp out of the office with Kanaya following you. 

 

You lean into the office and glare at Dave. He’s wearing this full red suit and those dumb sunglasses of John’s even though he’s indoors and he should by all rights look like a complete gaudy and tacky moron but he doesn’t. Somehow he has the audacity to be attractive. But no, you have standards, he is a victim in your case and afflicted by actual mind control. You’re not going to be unprofessional just because he has the nicest ass you’ve ever seen and everything about the cut of that suit he’s in begs for it to be peeled off of him. You’re not going to do that. 

 

You’re also going to stop staring at him and actually do what you came here to do. 

 

“Hey, Dave. Stop distracting my technobiologist and come here, I need your help with something.” you bark at him and Dave pauses to look at you with a skeptical eyebrow raise. Actually as he’s sitting right by John and Sollux maybe you’d be better off doing this with them there. 

 

“You know that you’re not normal, right?” you ask slowly as you walk towards him.

 

“Rude.” Dave scoffs. 

 

“No, I mean what’s been done to you. That’s not normal.” you clarify but Dave just looks blank, blank enough that you worry that you’ve dropped him down into idle mode again. 

 

“What?” Dave asks, confused.

 

“We’ve already tried explaining it to him, it just goes in one ear and out the other.” John sighs. Okay, fine, maybe you should be vaguer. 

 

“We’re going to go back to the hotel where you lived, okay?” you say. 

 

“Why’d you wanna do that?” Dave asks. 

 

“Well I’m a cop, remember? And there were several crimes committed there, there was a replicant there and that’s illegal. Bro is also a wanted criminal and you said that you weren’t allowed to leave, is that right?” you say slowly. 

 

“I… I couldn’t leave.” Dave mutters, his hand coming up to the back of his head where the port is. 

 

“Keeping someone somewhere and not letting them leave is a crime, do you understand that? What happened to you was a crime.” you explain. Dave’s hand falls down and he looks up at you, his mouth open slightly perhaps in surprise.

 

“Keeping people.” Dave says quietly. 

 

“When they don’t want to be somewhere is kidnapping, yes.” you nod. 

 

“We didn’t want to go.” he whispers and a tear runs down his cheek. 

 

Wait. What?

 

“We? Who is we? Was there someone else there like you? Someone else taken?” you ask hurriedly.

 

Dave’s expression scrunches up a little and your heart falls, he’s hit a mental block again. He won’t even remember you asking the question. 

 

“Whoa, man, why are you so close? Trying to get in my pants or something? You only had to ask you know and you’ve got the handcuffs already, so…” Dave says suddenly, flashing a fake grin at you and leaping to his feet.

 

“Dave, we’re going to the hotel that we found you at. Come with us.” Kanaya says personably from the door, she must have been listening in. Either way Dave takes her offer and follows after her but you don’t follow so quickly. Something truly terrible happened to him and you’re going to do whatever you have to if it means getting any kind of justice for him. You share a worried look with John before following your moirail to the car. 

 

Once the three of you are inside Dave leans forward from the back and wraps his arms around the back of both of your seats. 

 

“So I’ve got my cool new suit and we’re doing police work, right?” he asks. 

 

“Yes, that is what’s happening.” you groan. 

 

“Which makes me basically a cop, right?” Dave asks hopefully. 

 

“Unfortunately not, Dave. You have to go through a lot of tests and training to be an officer of the law and more still to be a blade runner specifically. You are, however, assisting us with our investigation and we are very grateful.” Kanaya says placatingly. 

 

As your car flies higher Dave yet again becomes fascinated with the view, the sun is setting, sparing you from what little light filters through the smog. Dave is leaning forward from the back to be almost between you and Kanaya so that he can stare out of the window.

 

“You like flying?” you ask him quietly. 

 

“The city just looks nicer up here, all the lights. Always liked to stand out here and look at the gold light on everything.” Dave says with a sigh. 

 

Always liked? That’s a statement about the past. You stare at the scenery until your eyes land on the gold of the Lalonde corporation building. Either Bro took him here and he admired the view or before he was kidnapped and experimented on Dave was wealthy enough to see the city from this high up from something other than a car. His statement implied something stationary after all. 

 

You file that away for later and let Kanaya fly you to the hotel. Knowing that you won’t have backup this time is unnerving to say the least. Kanaya parks down the street and you figure that now is as good a time for any for a briefing. You turn a little in your seat, the belt tugging on you as you move. 

 

“Alright, here’s what we’re doing. We want another look around this place now we’re not dealing with people trying to kill us or you with your brain switched off.” you explain. 

 

“We hope.” Kanaya adds, though you don’t know to which part. 

 

“You used to live there so anything at all that you can tell us about the place, however small, will be helpful. Any memories or associations you get just keep talking and let us worry about relevance, ok?” you say, directing that at Dave. 

 

“As opposed to you usually telling me to shut up?” he asks with a grin.

 

“Yes, now shut up until we get in there.” you sneer at him and get out. 

 

There’s crime scene tape over the door but it’s broken, not that it surprises you in this city. All the same you’re on your guard when you go into the building. You have to draw your gun but you’re also wary of setting Dave into the much warned against strife mode. It doesn’t happen, though. Perhaps because you’re not pointing it at him. Instead, he looks around at the base of the hotel like he’s never seen it before, but then again if he was kept to the penthouse only he may not have. 

 

Dave follows you both up the stairwell, having the sense to keep quiet here and it’s a good thing too because you’re not alone. You nearly shoot the intruder in the face when you see them you’re so startled. 

 

“Fucking hell! Don’t wave that thing around!” the man reprimands you. 

 

You lower your weapon slightly and take him in. An alarmed looking man with longish black hair and square sunglasses stands there, he’s wearing an LAPD crime scene cleanup tech outfit and holding a box on his shoulder. 

 

“Why are-” Dave starts to say from behind you but the man interrupts him. 

 

“Muzzle. Fuckin’ gun out of my face now please. We’re on the same side in case you couldn’t tell.” The guy says, tapping his shirt. Dave grabs a fistful of the back of your coat and jerks on it but you can’t take your eyes off of the guy to see what his problem is. 

 

“Seriously, what’s the statue of limitations on just bumping into you here?” he continues and whatever’s bothering Dave seems to stop but he keeps a hold of your coat. 

 

“The word is statute, you have not said why you are here or proven identification. I suggest you do.” Kanaya says, keeping her aim steady. 

 

“I’m just following orders, ‘parrently the original guys missed some things so I’ve been told to pick em up. Here.” the guy says and hands over his ID to Kanaya. She looks it over and seems satisfied. 

 

“So what have you got in the-” you try moving forward but your coat is stuck. You twist and see that Dave still has a tight fistful of it and when you tug he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t move at all actually. 

 

“Kanaya if he moves, shoot him. Dave, say or do anything for me please.” you say and touch him but he is stiff and frozen like a-

 

Like a statue.

 

“You said ‘statue’ of limitations.” you say slowly, looking back at the man. 

 

“What’s the difference? Can I just go already?” the guy whines petulantly. 

 

“You also said muzzle apropos of nothing, which means both the part of a gun but also to silence and gag. Dave had been trying to talk before then.” Kanaya says. 

 

Dave is still silent and stationary. Sollux said he had words to trigger him into certain states and this guy just used them. He’s no employee of the LAPD. 

 

“Put the box down and put your hands behind your head.” you order him, lifting your gun once more. The guy scoffs and shakes his head. 

 

“LAPD’s best and brightest, huh? Too bad you have no backup. But it’s cool, let’s play a game.” the man smirks, only his smile falters when nothing happens. Take THAT fucker, Sollux deleted a lot of the commands. 

 

“Interesting. Fine, classic will do. Dave, castle.” the man says and hops up effortlessly on the railing.

 

“Get back here!” Kanaya shouts as he drops several stories to the floor below, she leaps up onto the railing after him. She can survive that drop but you can’t. But right now you have bigger problems. The hand in the back of your coat tightens and you have just enough time to turn and see Dave bring a fist back before he punches you clean across the stairway landing. You crumple to the ground and wheeze, that was like being hit by a car.

 

“Karkat!” Kanaya yelps, hesitating on the railing. 

 

“Go! Get that guy, if it’s important enough to steal we need it!” you shout at her, scrambling to your feet as you watch Dave pull an iron railing from the stairs with not much effort only to heft it in his hand with his gaze solidly on you. 

 

“But-” she protests and you burst into a run up the stairs. 

 

“Go! I’ll think of something!” you shout as you run, your hand clutching your ribs. 

 

You’re not a slow runner, your job doesn’t allow you to be but Dave is faster by far. You’re not doing to out brute him in speed or strength, you need to out-think this. You’re a detective, so  _ detect _ . 

 

You burst into the apartment and sprint around a corner, you’re really hoping there isn’t anyone else who shouldn’t be here but is, alas it’s too late if that’s the case. Dave swings for you and explodes a doorframe, luckily for you he can’t get his weapon out. Unluckily for you this apartment is still swords are us. 

 

THINK!

 

This is what you know: 

  * Dave is a cyborg
  * Dave has distinct modes programmed into him, only this one is dangerous to you
  * He had some voice commands implanted to switch him from mode to mode but Sollux didn’t remove them all
  * Whoever made him like this may have also accidentally flipped him so the ones to get him back to nice peaceful Dave should be easy to remember. Better to accidentally make him compliant than murderous. 
  * You don’t have time to call Sollux



 

You have to start guessing. If you were an evil asshole and programming someone what off words would you pick?

 

“Fuck, off!” you shout. Wait, no, too common a word. You grab a chair and throw it at him only for Dave to turn it into two chair halves. 

 

“Peace! Calm!” you yell but no effect there. No, damnit those are still too common. Both in terms of ones Sollux might have guessed and too often used. You need synonyms, difficult crossword level of synonyms. 

 

“Truce!” you throw yourself under a table that cuts the room in half but Dave just leaps on top of it. You roll to the side. 

 

“Armistice! Treaty! Pacification!” you shout, squirming backwards as the sword keeps piercing the table in places you just were or thankfully only your clothes are now. 

 

Your head knocks against the wall, out of room to escape. 

 

“Pacifism!” you cry and the blade thuds in the ground near your head. You look to the side at it but it doesn’t move and then with a crash Dave falls off of the table onto a heap on the floor. 

 

Heaving a sigh of relief you flop back onto the floor, your head still perilously close to the sword. ‘Pacifism’ indeed. 

 

Crawling out you push Dave onto his back. He’s still breathing and when you pull his borrowed sunglasses off his eyes are glassy and unfocused, idle mode again then. You don’t actually know how to get him out of this but you know he’s not going to be impossible so for now he can stay like this. Simple commands, that’s the trick when he’s like this. 

 

“Sit up.” you tell him and he does so with an effortless flex of muscles that you hate him for a little. You get to your feet and dust yourself down, there doesn’t appear to be anyone else here so you were lucky. 

 

“Get up.” you say and Dave does so. 

 

“Who was that man on the stairs?” you ask. 

 

“Hal.” Dave replies monotonously. Hal? Well, that opens up a whole new bunch of questions.

 

“We need to find Kanaya, follow me.” you tell him and he does, there’s not even any hesitation when you make him cross the threshold of the apartment. You shove the door shut again but you doubt it’ll do much good. Dave is, it seems, perfectly content to follow you at any speed. Your radio is broken on account of your dumb ass landing on it, but you couldn’t radio for backup even if it wasn’t because this case is top secret. You go with your gut and run outside of the building and go left, Dave easily jogs to keep up with you so you needn’t worry about him. 

 

You nearly trip over the black wig on the floor as you stumble to not step on it. You snatch it up and press it into Dave’s hands. 

 

“Hold this, don’t drop it.” you order him and he obligingly holds the wig tight. You’re at least on the right trail, you start up running again and don’t get far until you come across Kanaya. A buildings fire escape is wrecked and ruined and there’s a bar missing from it, or not missing as you know just where it is. Right now it’s lodged through your moirail’s middle, pinning her to the wall. 

 

“Kan, oh shit, Kan.” you whine with worry and pet her face. She glows a little under your touch. She’s had worse than this before but not much worse. You need to think this through. Forcing down your instincts you step back from her and look at the impassive Dave. 

 

“Give me the wig.” you say, pulling an evidence bag out. You jostle the bag until Dave works out to drop it in there. You fold that up and put it in your coat. 

 

“Alright,” you say as you look at the bar pinning Kanaya to the wall, “do you remember where the car is? Nod if you remember that.” 

 

Dave nods.

 

“Great. Kanaya’s going to bite me in a minute and when she’s done you need to carry her and put her in the car.” you tell him. Dave doesn’t react but you hope he’ll remember or you’ll still be awake then. 

 

“Pull this out of her.” you order Dave, pointing to the bar. Dave walks around and cool as anything sets one hand on the wall and one on the bar and just yanks it free. Kanaya groans and falls to the floor. 

 

Kneeling down you unbutton your shirt and pull it out of the way as much as you can, thanking Kanaya’s foresight that it’s black. You shuffle your coat out of the way so your neck is totally exposed. 

 

“Come on, Kanaya.” you whisper and pick her up. Her middle gushes jade blood and you press your hand to it as best as you can to stem the flow and pull her to your throat. Tacky lipstick transfers to your skin and you brace yourself. You’ve never enjoyed this as such but usually Kanaya isn’t this bad off and she can shoosh you into a relaxed state but right now you’re keyed up and terrified. You know this is going to suck. Pun intended. 

 

Kanaya’s survival instincts finally kick in and her fangs scrape over your skin and puncture your flesh in a burst of terrible pain. You curse up a storm as Kanaya drinks, trying to ground yourself and not go into shock because if that happens you’ll both be passed out and Dave will just stand there like a useless bright red lamppost. You don’t want that. Partially because this Hal person may come back and take Dave with him and partly because even if they don’t two unconscious LAPD officers on the street will quickly, in this part of town, become two officers kicked to death while unconscious. Not a good idea. 

 

Mercifully Kanaya stops before you pass out. She licks your wound shut, a skill you have utilised for many a minor injury. You literally don’t even own bandaids anymore. Kanaya flops to the ground, her bleeding mostly stopped, and you woozily hold yourself up on all fours. 

 

“Dave… Dave pick Kanaya up gently.” you say.

 

Dave crouches down by you and slides his arms under Kanaya and stands up with her held delicately to him like he’s a prince come to sweep her away. 

 

“Good, good, that’s good.” you mumble and feel for the wall. You lurch to your feet awkwardly and lean against the brick until the spinning stops. 

 

“For what it’s worth, if I had a way to not use you as the prettiest servant butler who can’t say no I would. I don’t want to just make you do things.” you pant. Dave says nothing. 

 

“And… and if something happens and I die of blood loss or something and you remember this when Sollux and John wake you up then… then it’s not your fault.” you add. Dave is impassive. 

 

“Alright, to the car. Go.” you tell him. 

 

Dave turns and walks off. You stumble to catch up and finally settle for leaning against him with your arm around his waist as he supports you and carries Kanaya back to the car. At your instruction he gently puts Kanaya in the back of the car and buckles her in. 

 

“Get in that side.” you mumble, pointing to the other side of the car. You drop into the driver’s seat and bang your head on the way in. The world is spinning. You pull the doors shut and lock them. You can’t call for backup or an ambulance, too much to explain, too top secret. You try to dial Sollux’s number but you can’t get your hands coordinated enough to hit the right buttons. 

 

“Dave,” you breathe and slump against his shoulder, “I need you to hit the call button for me.” 

 

Dave looks at you for a moment then does what you say. You read him out Sollux’s extension number by memory and Dave faithfully dials it. And that’s about the last thing you remember. 

 

Some time later, with the headache of the century and an IV drip or two in your arm, you awake. Dave is sat in a chair by the side of the stretcher that you’re in. Across the way Kanaya is resting, IV lines going into her arm too. You tilt your head and realise that you’re in Sollux and John’s new and expanded lab, there’s a line going from Dave’s head to his computer. Noise in the far corner tells you that John is around somewhere as well. 

 

“You owe him your life, you know.” Sollux says, not looking at you. 

 

“What happened? I was in the car and…” you frown. What then?

 

“He called us, on your instruction I guess. He managed to answer enough questions for me and follow instructions enough for me to remotely fly you here. Also, you broke him!” Sollux snaps. 

 

“Broke him?” you ask worriedly. 

 

“Or, well, not you. But his programming is going weird.” Sollux complains and shuffles his chair over so that he’s closer to you. Dave passively watches him move. 

 

“We ran into a guy, into Hal,” you say and watch several meters on Sollux’s monitor spike at the word, “he was stealing evidence and when we caught him at it he used a command to flip Dave into that strife setting, that said the first one he tried didn’t work. Before that he managed to make him go silent and freeze with two other commands.” 

 

You sit up, still woozy but better. You’re not going to take the IV lines out, you’re not that dumb. Dave also looks at you as you move, you figure he’s tracking movement. 

 

“I managed to guess the command to switch him back to whatever this is before he killed me.” you explain. 

 

“What was it? Wait, no, write them all down.” Sollux says and pushes a pen and paper your way. 

 

Dutifully you write them all down as well as what you think they did and hand it back. Sollux looks over it thoughtfully. 

 

“These ones I can erase no problem and I’ll check to see if I can find any that are similar.” Sollux says, tapping the ‘muzzle’ and ‘statue’ commands. 

 

“This one I took out already but this, I bet this is specific to defending that location. I think it’s a reference to an old Earth law of being allowed to defend your property with lethal force.” Sollux explains, underlining the word ‘castle’. 

 

“Well this one was the one I used and the last one, is this not idle mode?” you ask, pointing at the ‘pacifist’ command. 

 

“It is and it isn’t. Honestly, his neural responses are closer to how they were when he wasn’t controlled at all, his reactions to things are stronger than in idle. He’s clearly alert and aware in there but it’s like his physical behaviour is warped. It’s possible that this is another subroutine like the specific defence one. But I’m struggling to get him out of it.” Sollux says. 

 

God, that must be terrifying. You reach out and take Dave’s sunglasses off so you can see his eyes. He’s looking up at you but his expression is gentle, passive. You trail a hand down to his neck to take his pulse, it’s faster than you’d expect for someone who looks so calm. You give him his glasses back, it is still bright in here and you don’t want to hurt him. 

 

“There’s got to be something we can do to fix this.” you say and gingerly unbutton your shirt, your ribs still hurt and you want to see how badly you’re fucked up. 

 

“Uh… huh.” Sollux says, looking from his screen to you. 

 

You get to the last button and pull your shirt out of your tough black slacks, Kanaya made them outside of something ultra sturdy because she was sick of repairing them every time you fell off something, got thrown into something else or skidded along something. She also said you had to tuck your shirt in for a) the look and b) so you didn’t get stuff inside your shirt. After a few weeks of not picking gravel off of your skin you agreed. You run your hands over your bare chest working first up to the sore bite mark and then down over to where Dave punched you. You gasp slightly in pain as the whole area throbs with pain. 

 

Suddenly Dave launches himself out of his chair and is looking anywhere but you. He snapped out of it, what happened? 

 

“That’s interesting.” Sollux says smugly. 

 

“Shut the fuck up.” Dave mutters and pulls the plug from the back of his head before Sollux can stop him. 

 

“What was that about?” you ask Sollux who gives you a smile full of teeth. 

 

“Looks like certain human responses weren’t accounted for. He’s back to his normal free self now. I’ll keep working on those code words. Eheheheh.” Sollux slinks off laughing to himself leaving you none the wiser. Well, you guess you’re stuck here until John gives you the all clear to go wandering around. But still, you eye Dave skulking about in the corner of the room refusing to look at you and wonder just what you missed there. 


	4. Chapter 4

Reader: >Be Kanaya

 

Unfortunately dear reader you cannot be, not unless you want the tantalising text to be blank. Perhaps we could be Karkat again but he just had his turn again and Dave seems wholly unwise for many reasons. If we must break from the departure of the expected format of this work can we not gain something interesting from it?

 

Perhaps we can.

 

A young man stands in his bedroom, this place is his home and he is, indeed stuck but there is where the similarities end. The young man has been a young man for his entire life and counter to the expected format he had his name for far longer. He wouldn’t want to tell you his name, he’s twitchy about that sort of thing. He might tell you his screen name however, those are chosen and his has mutated over the years. 

 

He goes by timelyTestification or TT for short. 

 

TT is tall, a glamorous designer kind of skinny perhaps, very blonde and right now very irked. We watch as he rifles through a stack of boxes trying to find something. Successful he pulls out a glass vial and a needle and sits down on the edge of his bed, although bed might be a charitable term for a mattress that is on the floor by an open window that faces out to the sea. 

 

Sliding a needle into his arm he fills the small vial with blood, stoppers it and drops it on the bed. Removing the needle he then puts a label on the vial, smoothing it down neatly. He writes in clear and legible orange handwriting ‘Dave’. On his bed is a small open box, carefully waterproofed with another handwritten note tucked inside. The address on the box need not concern you at this point, gentle reader, but the recipients are players that have not come to action yet and they just may be of interest. It it key to note then that as TT closes his box and seals it shut the two names on the address label are evident.

 

‘Mr. Jake English and Ms. Jane Crocker,

Living Hope Private Detective Agency’

 

TT by choice is not a man of much action and little happens where he lives, but every so often mail drones fly by his home and if someone could time it right and had superhuman aim someone could smuggle a small package into the mail system. But someone would have to have a lot of time, inclination and skill to do that. Fortunately for him, he possesses just those things.

 

But perhaps choosing to be TT was unwise, he doesn’t really do much after this for some time. Maybe you should have just been Karkat to begin with. 

 

Reader: >Be Karkat

 

Be… what? You come to a stop in the lab, halfway through pulling your coat on. Dave pauses and looks back at you curiously. 

 

“What?” he asks. 

 

“Nothing, weird thought that’s all. Can you help me carry Kanaya to the roof?” you ask, actually hoping that Dave will do all of the carrying for you. You and kanaya are both unhooked now but Kanaya is still out cold, her middle bandaged up carefully. Luckily for you Dave does just that, gently cradling Kanaya in his super strong cyborg arms. 

 

“Just put her in sopor and call me if you have any problems with…” Sollux says quietly and jerks his head at Dave. 

 

“And don’t drive too fast!” he shouts after you as you leave. 

 

You will drive as fast as you damn well want to. Which given that it’s raining to high heaven is not that fast. Kanaya is gently put in the back and Dave rides shotgun again as you start to drive. With the rain sluicing down the windows it’s hard to see anywhere other than directly ahead and the already hazy city becomes hazier still. You flick on your highbeams and take it slow. 

 

“So I’m staying with you?” Dave asks eventually. 

 

“Yeah, it’s too dangerous to leave you at the station and it’s not really set up for sleeping. I can protect you at my place and we can both protect Kanaya while she heals.” you tell him. 

 

Flame vents up from a factory stack, clear enough from you for there to be no danger but close enough to make the water drops rolling down the windows of your car dazzle like diamonds. 

 

“She bit you, I remember it. I can see where she did it.” Dave says quietly. 

 

“Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s a troll thing, she’s a rainbow drinker. She’s very hard to kill, she gets plenty of cool powers but she also needs to drink blood. She’s my moirail so I donate, it’s not usually enough to care about but she was really hurt this time. Humans overreact to that sort of thing usually, call her a vampire, I don’t like that.” you say that last part firmly. You have not liked that very intensely in bar fights before with assholes who attacked and degraded her, even though Kanaya has had to rescue you from those fights you don’t regret it. 

 

“She’s going to be okay though? I liked her.” Dave says, looking back at her. 

 

“She’ll be fine, she’s tougher than she looks.” you tell him and land on the roof of your building, rolling over to your parking spot. 

 

The act of moving Kanaya and having rain on her face rouses her so when Dave brings her inside your place she’s blearily awake. You have some spare blood stashed in the back of your refrigerator behind the dehydrated coffee can, you take them and return them to her. You don’t need to look at Dave to sense his attention weighing on the two of you as she drinks. 

 

“Thank you.” Kanaya sighs, sliding down on the sofa that Dave had put her down on.

 

“At least you’re awake now. You scared me.” you say gently, feeling her forehead to see if she’s the right temperature. She’s not, she’s too cold. 

 

“The man I chased he… I pulled his wig off. He was blonde, I got his glasses too but he picked them… his eyes were red.” Kanaya says breathily. Blonde hair, unusual eyes. This is a pattern you don’t like. Either this was a replicant or someone else like Dave who had been similarly modified. 

 

“He got away with the box.” she says as well. 

 

“Don’t worry about that now, ok? Shoosh.” you whisper and stroke her clammy cheek. 

 

Dave strides past you and out onto your tiny little balcony. He shuts the door behind him and you watch his hazy frame through the glass but all he does is lean on the railing and stay still. 

 

“I’m going to order pizza, which you’re going to eat. And then you’ll sleep.” you tell her and she doesn’t fight you on this. 

 

Placing a call to your regular pizza place isn’t hard, you don’t know what Dave eats but you pick enough things that he’s bound to find something. You pass a dozing Kanaya and carefully filch a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of the side table by the door, then let yourself outside. You’re not well off so your place isn’t high up, still below the thick smog layer and currently besieged by rain there’s not much to do out here aside from stare at advertisements, the cars that fly by or as you so often do, smoke.

 

“Don’t tell Kanaya about me doing this.” you tell him, a cigarette held between your teeth. 

 

Dave watches you as it flares to life and you get that first soothing hit of nicotine, the kind that tells you that you will alright, that your moirail won’t die, that you can keep working. You exhale a cloud of smoke and relief. 

 

“Do you smoke?” you ask, thinking it’d be polite to offer. Dave shakes his head.

 

“Smart, it’s not a good thing to do.” you admit and turn to look out over your balcony. 

 

“Sorry about leaving.” he says and from the tilt of his head you can tell he’s glancing your way. 

 

“As long as you stay in the apartment with us you can go where you like, I’m not going to tell you what to do when you’re here beyond just don’t break my things.” you say with a shrug. 

 

Dave turns and looks back through the window of the apartment and stays silent for a while. 

 

“Do trolls get more than one set of teeth?” he asks suddenly out of nowhere. 

 

That’s the strangest question he’s ever asked you but you’ve asked him plenty of questions so you may as well answer him. You tilt your head back and your answer comes out in smoke.

 

“When we molt we gain new teeth if our heads got that much bigger, usually you’ll gain back any you lost as well. Why?” you say. 

 

“But you’ve never lost a tooth then?” he asks. 

 

“When I was younger I got hit in the face bad enough to knock a tooth out, yeah. This one.” you say and point to one that’s just visible if you smile. 

 

“Humans lose teeth and get new ones too.” Dave says, you knew this of course but you figure he has a point. You flick the ash off down into the street below and wait for him to continue.

 

“I don’t remember- I mean I can’t think of being somewhere and not having a tooth that I did have but I know I must have. I remember the feeling. Running your tongue over where it was before and finding that gap, and you know it’s not there but you prod it with your tongue anyway and it hurts.” he says softly. You remember that too. But why is he bringing this up. 

 

“I feel weird when I see you and her like that. Feels like missing a tooth.” he says. 

 

Frowning you consider that statement. At first you’re inclined to put it down as envy, your relationship with Kanaya is wonderful and plenty of people are envious of that and someone who has been hurt as badly as him could certainly use a moirail. But that isn’t what he said. When he looks at you and her he feels like he did when he lost a tooth. That’s not envy, that’s loss, missing something that should be there and maybe was always there but now is not and its absence is felt all the keener. 

 

“You’re lonely.” you say and flick your near enough spent cigarette into the downfall. 

 

“No, that’s stupid.” Dave denies. 

 

“I pity Kanaya, love her in your human understanding. You see us and you feel like you’ve lost something, right?” you say. Dave opens his mouth silently and hesitates uncertainly. 

 

“That means someone loved you once, that you loved someone back too. That’s good.” you assure him and put your hand on his arm. 

 

“How so?” he asks, obviously skeptical. 

 

“Someone loved you, Dave. They may still love you. That means they’ll have looked for you, it means we can find them for you.” you say, squeezing his arm gently with reassurance. He must have a family, friends, a partner maybe who wants to get him back. 

 

Before the cyborg forms a reply there’s a bang on your door, the food no doubt, and you’re not about to make your poor injured moirail get it. You let Dave go and walk back inside. Kanaya’s thick black eyelashes flutter as you walk past her. Peering through the peephole shows a bored delivery boy with a stack of boxes, all the same you slide your hand behind your back to wrap your hand around your gun. You can never be too careful. 

 

“Vantas? Here you go.” the boy says, handing you the stack of boxes. 

 

“Thanks, how much?” you ask, setting them on the side and reaching for your wallet with the other hand. Despite your preparation the pizza guy is happy to exchange pizza for money without trying to shoot, stab or otherwise harm you. 

 

“One of the better companies at least.” Dave says, peering at the boxes. That’s interesting, if you can see what companies he recognises and what one he’s most familiar with then you might be able to work out a pattern for Bro’s behaviour. Another possible lead, but for now dinner. 

 

You pass Kanaya a box that is basically all meat and glare at her until she starts eating. Dave settles into a chair and picks curiously at what you’ve ordered as you sit at the end of the sofa that Kanaya is on and eat as well. He seems a little more comfortable so maybe now that things have calmed down you can try to get some kind of information out of him. 

 

“Do you remember your last name yet?” you ask him as he picks up a slice of pizza. He freezes, looking blank and you watch as half of the toppings slide off of the slice and onto the cardboard. 

 

“What?” Dave says, shaking himself off and then jamming some pizza in his mouth. Still no joy with that then. Try something else. 

 

You have no idea who he is. He has no idea who he is. All you have is a first name which may or may not be real. You have a ballpark age, but given how much his body has been altered that may not be accurate either. His DNA and fingerprints didn’t ping anything in the system so he’s never been arrested for anything. John is widening the search to all cases but you’ve already hit into some corrupted records, it wouldn’t surprise you if Bro had scrubbed Dave’s data from your systems. He’s effectively a ghost. 

 

You need to start seeing him less as a witness and more as a victim. If he has helpful information for you then that’s great but someone needs to answer for what’s been done to him. 

 

“Did John tell you about the surgeries?” you ask carefully, wary of tripping into anything that’ll make Dave go blank all over again. You know full well that he’s tried to explain but you want to know if anything has stuck. 

 

“Surgeries?” Dave asks. 

 

“The ones that were done on you, where you got a lot of those scars from.” you explain, gesturing to his hand with the faintest scars on. Dave looks at his hand and flexes his fingers slowly. 

 

“I’ve been upgraded.” Dave says emotionlessly, his tone strange. Upgraded is an interesting way of putting it, improved for his benefit or someone else’s. Moreover you don’t upgrade people, you upgrade items or tools.  

 

“Is that how John put it?” you question him but Dave shakes his head. That must have come from Bro then. 

 

“Bro did it to you.” you state and Dave nods slowly. At least he’s able to hold the idea in his head now without losing the memory, small improvements. 

 

“It’s illegal to perform surgery like that without someone’s consent. I’m pretty sure the procedure itself isn’t medically approved either. This shouldn’t have been done to you, we need to catch Bro for this.” you explain. 

 

“Consent?” Dave asks, his voice is starting to sound strange and almost numb again. 

 

“You know what that is, don’t you? You can tell someone no and then it’s wrong if they do it anyway. You don’t have to agree to things you don’t want to do.” you say slowly. Dave looks like he doesn’t entirely understand the concept. Then again you suppose that it might be hard to understand that you have the power to say no when someone can literally override your brain and force you to comply or knock you out cold and experiment on you. The fact that you have to explain it at all is heartbreaking but he still doesn’t entirely seem to grasp it if the confused look on his face is anything to go by. 

 

“We will not let that kind of thing happen to you any more, Dave. Unless you are in danger we will not force you to comply with what we want and no one will do surgery on you without your agreement again.” Kanaya promises. 

 

Dave looks lost. It’s so strange, earlier in the car he had seemed so alive and annoyed you so much but here as you two are talking to him he seems so broken and lost that you’re no longer irritated with him but sad for him. You’re angry that someone would hurt him like this, warp him into someone who doesn’t understand that he can say no and mean it. You’re surprised in retrospect that he said no to wearing the clothes that came from his home, but at least it reinforces your point that you both took him at his refusal and found another solution. 

 

“What is Bro like? You lived with him, right? You must know something about him.” you ask, changing topics somewhat. Dave shifts uncomfortably in his seat, his red suit sticking slightly to the faux leather of your chair. 

 

“I don’t know, man. He wasn’t always there. What do you even want to know?” Dave mutters and though you can’t see his eyes you know that he’s not looking at you. 

 

“Anything would be helpful, Dave. What does he look like for a start?” Kanaya prompts him. 

 

“Tall.” Dave mumbles. 

 

“That matches the clothes we found, go on.” you nod encouragingly. 

 

“His hair is the same colour as mine but he’s usually wearing a hat. Like a…” Dave is partway through gesturing when his movement stutters and he has to shake himself out of it. 

 

“What else does he look like?” you prompt and Dave seems to remember what he was saying. 

 

“He… he has shades. They look like… like…” Dave trails off. 

 

You and Kanaya exchange a worried look. Dave’s just sitting there silently, he had been starting to gesture out the same triangle shades that you found him with but he just stopped and now his hands are limply resting in his lap. It’s all too similar to how he was at the lab when he went fully into that ‘idle’ mode that Sollux showed you. 

 

“Dave?” you prompt. He doesn’t answer. 

 

“Can you take off your glasses?” you ask, leaning forward to look at him. Obediently Dave does and, yeah, he has that same glassy look as before. Looking at him now you can see that his pupils are a little dilated and he’s not really focused on anything either. Shit. 

 

“Can you pass me the phone, Kan?” you ask and Kanaya reaches out to the table and grabs it to pass it off to you, careful not to twist too far and aggravate her injury. You dial Sollux’s number and thankfully he picks up. 

 

“What?” he asks brusquely. 

 

“You’re so polite. Look, Dave dropped into that idle mode or maybe the other one and I don’t know what I did before to get him out or if it happened on its own. Is there a way for me to get him out of it without a biowire and getting you down here?” you ask. You probably should have talked about this before taking him home but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. 

 

Getting up you move over and kneel before him, you shuffle the pizza boxes out of the way and look up at him. This isn’t the same mode that he was in before where he was looking at you, with this he’s barely here. This is true idle mode, you guess there needs to be another name for what he was in earlier and actually pacifist mode is a decent enough moniker. He was peaceful and gentle there but still somewhat present. You reach out and touch his jaw, tilting his head this way and that but he just obediently goes with it. Actually, his skin is weirdly smooth. You know human adult males, John is a good example, tend to have faces that are rough and scratchy even if they’ve shaved. Is Dave’s skin synthetic here or something? It’s as smooth as yours. 

 

“Uh, yeah let me look at my notes. He had some codewords, I was going over my earlier scans of his system after you left. I figured there were more surprises in there and I’ve got more work to do on him when you bring him back but when I made that free mode I tried my hand at commands to put him back into it but I never got to test them.” he explains. 

 

“I’m sure that’s how science is done, good job.” you complain, letting go of Dave’s face. 

 

“Bite me. Try ‘apples’.” Sollux suggests.

 

“Seriously?” you ask incredulously. 

 

“The idea with trigger words like that is it’s not really something that comes up in casual conversation. Just try it.” Sollux explains, sounding pissy as always. 

 

“Yeah I’m aware of that from the one I guessed on my own, thanks but… fine.” 

 

You look up at Dave again but he doesn’t look at you, he’s so blank and empty. With a nervous lick of your lips you lean in a little.  

 

“Apples.” you say, feeling more than a touch silly as you do. 

 

Dave blinks sleepily and then his eyes lock onto you and focus properly. 

 

“Dude, personal space.” Dave snorts in amusement so you sigh and take a step back from him. 

 

“It worked. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” you say down the phone. 

 

“Told you. Call me if you have any other programming problems with him and remember what I said about not threatening him into that strife mode.” Sollux warns. 

 

“Yeah once in a day is enough for me thanks.” you agree and hang up. 

 

“Are you aware that you do that?” you ask Dave.

 

“Do what?” Dave asks, effectively answering your question. 

 

“Did John and Sollux explain that you have a neural network in your brain? It can put you in different modes, like a computer. You just switched into what Sollux said was labelled idle mode until Karkat brought you out of it. Are you not aware of that?” Kanaya asks him. Dave frowns at her words but doesn’t seem to have anything to say. He looks down at his glasses in his hands. 

 

“You seemed aware of some of the other parts before, or do you just feel like it’s things you don’t remember well?” you guess.

 

“I took these off.” Dave says distantly as he looks down at his borrowed glasses. 

 

“I asked you to and you did it.” you confirm for him. 

 

“I remember that. Or I think I do. It was like a dream.” he says slowly, his brow furrowing. 

 

“Can you remember other times when you’ve been like that?” you press and Dave seems to think for a few long moments. 

 

“You… you two came into my room. Put me in handcuffs. You asked me questions I think.” Dave mumbles. 

 

“That is right. You were in idle mode then and asking about Bro too much put you back there. Do you know why?” Kanaya asks him gently, she always did have a better bedside manner than you even though she’s the one who’s hurt right now. 

 

“Bro doesn’t want people up in his grill.” Dave answers, again with the antiquated slang. 

 

“Do you know how we can find him?” you ask but Dave shakes his head. You suppose that makes sense if Dave was never allowed to leave the area he was kept in, let alone the building. 

 

“Do I have to go back?” Dave asks quietly, looking up at you with those unnaturally red eyes. There’s a sharp yank of pity in your heart at how vulnerable a question that is. 

 

“No, you don’t. You can stay here for now and when we find out who you used to be you might have family who are looking for you that you can stay with. We’re not going to give you back to Bro.” you assure him. After all you meant what you said to him earlier, if someone loved him then someone will be missing him.

 

“If someone was looking for me wouldn’t they have found me already?” Dave asks, sliding his borrowed sunglasses onto his face. 

 

“You were very well hidden, that does not mean that people were not looking for you just because they did not find you.” Kanaya insists. 

 

You chew your pizza and your mind wanders to the people Dave must have spent his time around. He mentioned Davesprite already, the orange replicant with wings but then there’s Bro himself and that Hal person. You don’t know what his day to day life was like with them. Did Dave really have any interaction with them? He had idle mode programmed, strife and off. The one he’s in now was coded in by Sollux, you don’t see how it would have happened before. How conscious was he really around them? 

 

“What is Hal like?” you ask carefully. Dave shrugs, maybe you need to be more specific. 

 

“He was wearing a disguise today, does he do that a lot?” you ask, that’s a finer grained question. 

 

“No. Maybe, he’s not always there.” Dave mumbles around a slice of pizza. 

 

“Is he a replicant or a human like you?” you ask. Dave says something with a mouth full of food but it’s close enough to ‘replicant’ for you to know what he means. 

 

“I couldn’t help but notice that- ah, that he looks like you.” Kanaya says, wincing as she sets her empty pizza box on the floor. 

 

“He doesn’t look like me.” Dave answers. 

 

“His hair was like yours and his eyes too.” Kanaya points out. 

 

“Yeah.” he agrees. 

 

So how does he not look like Dave then? 

 

You turn your attention on Dave again and note that he’s tense, his posture clearly uncomfortable. Hmm. 

 

“Do you want to stop talking about this?” you ask. 

 

“Yeah. But…” Dave shrugs. It’s easy to fill in the blank there, ‘but what I want doesn’t matter’. 

 

“Alright then. Kanaya, you should sleep.” you say and get up to look at her. She doesn’t look pleased but she knows better than to argue when she’s hurt. You lean down and let her wrap her arms around your neck, sliding your hands under her hips and pulling her until she’s upright. Supporting her as best as you can you take her to your room and close the door. There’s not much in here aside from your wardrobe and your recuperacoon. 

 

You heft her up onto the rim of the recuperacoon and let her get her breath back from the pain, her fangs are gritted tightly but she is weak enough that the luminescent glow of her skin is flickering.

 

You pick at the hem of the loaned oversized LAPD issue tshirt, probably John’s. Making a mental note to wash and return it you toss it on the floor. Kanaya’s shirt was so wrecked that it had to simply be thrown, which was a shame but no doubt she will make something just as elegant again in future. The bandages around her middle come off next and go straight into the trash, she needs sopor on her wounds to heal and the dressing will simply harbour bacteria. The wound through her stomach is livid and angry, stitched together with slow dissolving thread. At least it doesn’t look infected. Quietly shooshing her you reach around her back and unclasp her bra, this at least you neatly fold and set aside for her. Her skirt was unharmed so that comes off and is also folded. 

 

“Do you remember when people used to protest that you got to break uniform like this? And Terezi said that anyone who could beat your time on the obstacle course in what they wanted to wear could do so?” you ask, distracting her as you take off her stockings which are destroyed and also going in the trash. You don’t know for sure but you suspect they’re expensive. You also get the thing that they’re attached to which you don’t know the name of and you take the underwear too because she will be most annoyed if it gets stained sopor green. Look, Kanaya has educated you a lot over the years about fashion but you’re still not up to speed on the lingerie department. No one you’ve ever dated flush or pitch has worn anything this fancy so it’s not really come up. Besides you’re not in the habit of doing this for your moirail unless she’s grievously injured, unfortunately that’s been quite a bit more than once but still not often. 

 

“A shame, John was- ah, rather fetching in that slip I feel.” Kanaya says and hisses as you maneuver her legs into the sopor and set her in the coon properly. 

 

“Thanks for reminding me, I’ll go drink to bleach my mind of that memory again, thanks.” you wince and gather her salvageable clothes. 

 

“Thank you.” your moirail says softly, her eyes sliding shut.

 

“Get some rest.” you tell her and shut the door after you. 

 

You leave, her clothes in your hand and walk out into the main room and through to your dismally small little kitchen. You throw her things in the laundry and set it to the settings that she’s taught you. Going back into the main room you eye Dave who is nosily going through your things. You’re trying to respect his wishes to not talk about the subject of the people he used to live with, a gesture to try to earn his trust and to prove that you and Kanaya won’t be treating him like he was treated before. Even though you may have to let Sollux root around in his head for his own good you don’t want it to be a thing. 

 

You didn’t promise to not think about it though. 

 

Dave picks through your place carefully, regarding everything with interest and attention. He can’t even tell you how long he was there but you bet it’s been quite some time. But he wasn’t alone. You need to think about your intelligence gathered so far. 

 

Somehow Bro knew you were coming, that’s the most likely although it’s possible he just got lucky. There was one replicant waiting for you, Davesprite. Dave mentioned that he was the one that looked like him and the name at least implies that he was modelled after Dave himself. That alone puts the timespan that Dave was there at years, designing a replicant from scratch and especially one that complex cannot be a fast procedure at all. Who knows how many failed versions there were before him. You eye Dave and lower your estimate of when he was taken to at least mid teens, poor bastard. 

 

Then there’s Hal. He seemed smart, like high level replicants are and he was aware of Dave, his activation words and was actively trying to cover up a crime. He even disguised himself. Definitely smart. He’s also blonde haired and red eyed. Your instinct is to say also modelled after Dave, but the face was different and Dave denied that he looked like him. 

 

Wait. 

 

Dave didn’t say that he and Hal didn’t look alike, he said that Hal didn’t  _ look like him. _ Nor did he say that it was a coincidence or he doesn’t know why he looks like that. No, he doesn’t look like  _ him _ .

 

The million dollar question then, if he doesn’t look like Dave, then who does he look like?

 

Are you looking for another human victim here? Or does he look like Bro himself? 

 

You write your questions down for later. For now you’re off of the clock and the wellbeing of this victim of Bro’s and your moirail both take priority. 

 

“You like romance movies.” Dave says, flicking through your collection. 

 

“You got a problem with that?” you challenge him, puffing up your chest in case he dare mock you. 

 

Dave shrugs and stops touching the movies. Shit, you scared him off. 

 

“What kind of movies do you like?” you ask. Guy can’t remember his own name but maybe telling you about himself in some other way might help… help what? Help him rewire his brain so he functions like this always? That was what Sollux said the aim was, right? 

 

Dave bites his lip, not looking at you. You watch his lips part but no answer come out right away. 

 

“I don’t know.” he admits. 

 

“You don’t like romance movies though?” you try again, maybe excluding results is easier. 

 

“No. Well, I don’t- I’m not allergic to it but I don’t see the point of a film that’s just that.” he answers. 

 

“Bro likes horror movies.” Dave adds before you can even ask anything else. His tone suggests emphatically that he does not share this like and honestly you’re not surprised that scum like Bro would like horror, not that the genre is evil but you can see him enjoying it for different reasons. For inspiration even. 

 

“What about fantasy?” you ask, getting up and walking to his side. You’d settled in a chair earlier to be less threatening to him but now you think you require your movie collection. Dave looks at you with a confused expression.

 

“You mean porn?” he questions. 

 

“What?! No! Why would- I meant fantasy the movie genre not porn, why would you assume porn?” you splutter. 

 

“He likes that too.” Dave shrugs and that does send shudders down your spine. 

 

“Sit down, I’ll pick a movie. Something Alternian unless you mind.” you say. Dave shrugs and walks off, dropping onto your sofa with a wheeze of aged fabric. You pick something with a little action but no real physical danger, suitable enough that you could show a child is safest but also not something childish. You settle on something of East Alternian fare and flick the film over to a projected screen on your wall and take your place next to Dave. You wave the lights off and in deference to the dark he takes his glasses off. It takes a moment of fiddling to get the film to sub into English for him, you don’t expect that he speaks Alternian. 

 

“I’m not a baby.” he rebukes you when he sees that the film is animated rather than normally shot. 

 

“Animation is more respected on Alternia.” you say in response and let the film continue. 

 

It was, in hindsight, a poor choice perhaps to choose a film that effectively starts off with a young girl being kidnapped from her biclops lusus. Seeing as that must have happened to Dave, albeit likely slightly older, you’d expect him to be bothered and yet he doesn’t seem to be. Instead he’s full of questions, about lusii, about how they interact with troll children and even about the spiritual and mythological themes the movie pulls on. When it becomes clear that the movie is diverging from reasonably normal troll life and into wild fantasy magic he simply settles down and begins to absorb the film.

 

This leaves you instead to watch the light of the movie play over his face, you don’t need to read the subtitles after all, and you track his expressions. The slight pull of his mouth as the main character loses part of her name as a symbol that the witch owns her now, again a bad choice for you to give a man who can’t remember his last name. But he seems to enjoy the film, even becoming invested in the character’s relationships, especially with the shapeshifting dragon. In fact the moment the main character leaves the hurt dragon to go seek help for him Dave becomes obviously tense and end up literally on the edge of his seat. 

 

You’re a detective now and have been for a long time, off the clock or not you can’t so easily switch off your drive to worry at new clues like a barkbeast with a bone. Dave talked off loss before, of being loved and losing that love, albeit telling you about it indirectly. Watching affection was obviously uncomfortable for him but as soon as the young troll girl in the film leaves her beloved dragon friend behind, direly injured though he is, Dave reacts. 

 

What can you conclude from that?

 

At one point in his life Dave was a normal human. He delights in being high up in a car but wasn’t stunned at travel or confused about shops or anything else normal in life. He wasn’t born into Bro’s little enclosure for him. At one time people loved him and now he doesn’t have that and on some level he is aware of it. He feels no one is looking for him. He also cried when you asked him that question on the Voight-Kampff about a dead sibling and expressed guilt. Now in front of a movie about a young girl isolated from her caregiver the sight of her leaving someone she loves behind in an effort to help resonates with him. 

 

You can conclude that Dave was at some point taken from his loved ones and you will bet it was a violent encounter. He was at least a young teenager at the time judging from the existence of Davesprite but he may well have been younger than that. But the guilt and the certainty that no one is looking for him suggests that it’s at least possible that there isn’t anyone alive  _ to _ look for him anymore. Bro kills people, he could well have killed Dave’s whole family and taken Dave. 

 

But why? Why Dave? Why go to that much trouble? Bro isn’t stupid, there’s a reason he hasn’t been caught before. Just grabbing some random kid and murdering his family does fit with how he operates, you’re missing something here. 

 

“She’s just leaving him?” Dave asks, his voice tight. Your attention snaps to the film, the girl is leaving the dragon boy who is now back in the form that looks like a normal troll boy. It’s become clear that he can’t go with her, he can’t exist in her world anymore but he’ll live on in the magical world she found him in. The girl promises to see him again some day and walks off to find her biclops lusus waiting for her at the entrance to the world, none the wiser to anything that happened. A poignant and moving moment in the movie by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Dave doesn’t seem happy with this, looking more and more irate as the movie ends like that. 

 

“What kind of bullshit ending is that?” he demands and falls back on the sofa, scowling at the credits. 

 

“How would you have ended it?” you ask curiously. 

 

“She should have stayed with him! They saved each other’s lives and he wasn’t being controlled anymore, they could have gone together to somewhere else. She didn’t have to go back to the real world.” he snaps, waving a hand at the projection. 

 

“What about her lusus, though?” you ask. 

 

“Who cares about that?” Dave grumbles. Interesting. 

 

You don’t put on another movie and instead set up a makeshift human bed on the sofa for Dave. Without sopor you’ll sleep like crap wherever you are so you take the chair, you may not even sleep at all. But no matter your intentions your focus drifts back to the sleeping cyborg. You’re going to get to the bottom of what happened to him and you’re going to find Bro and when you do, you’ll make him pay.


End file.
